2026-03-20 12:34:09

Ronnie O’Sullivan has made snooker history after hitting a 153 at the World Open in China.

The 50-year-old legend made the highest break in professional snooker after putting together a record-breaking run en route to a 5-0 win over quarter final victory over Ryan Day.

In a video on X after the game, he said: “Just want to say a big shoutout to all the people who have been messaging me, congratulating me on the 153.

“It was a pretty cool moment, really happy to do it. Thank you to everyone out there that has supported me.”

In 2024, O’Sullivan revealed that he has no plans to retire despite playing snooker professionally for over 30 years, despite taking breaks.

He told the BBC in 2024: “As long as I can pace myself. We all have moments where we hate what we do.

“Then a few weeks later, you wake up and you go, ‘Actually, I really love this’. That’s normal for everybody. There are so many options I can take.”

O’Sullivan noted he has plenty of other “avenues to go down”, and that gives him a lot of freedom in the sport.

He continued: “There are different avenues to go down. And there are other cue sports I can always turn my hand to.

“As long as there are no tournaments on the main tour, I can play in any event I want to, so I’ll probably play in some seniors events in a few months’ time.”

And late last year, the snooker icon – who turned 50 in December – revealed credited moving to Dubai, ditching social media and changing her phone number gave him a “clean start”.

O’Sullivan – who married actress Laila Rouass in June – explained how he waved goodbye to social media, messaging, news apps, the internet on his phone, and even changed his number so only his closest family and friends can contact him.

He told the Sunday Times newspaper: “It’s sort of a clean start.

“I wish I’d done it before. I might do it every six months. I’m not looking to progress my career through networking and that sort of thing. I’ve got my friends and that’s enough. The phone doesn’t really add to my life. So it’s quite nice, really.”

The seven-time World Snooker Championship winner has not learnt Arabic, but he thinks that is a good thing because “one of the beauties of not knowing the language is I don’t really want to talk to everyone that I come in contact with”.

Ronnie added: “I know it sounds terrible, but we just smile at each other, ‘Hello,’ and it’s good.”

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