Ronnie O’Sullivan is in the draw for the 2025 World Snooker Championship at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, and ‘The Rocket’ is setting his sights on a record-breaking eighth world title.
Already widely regarded as snooker’s greatest player of all time, O’Sullivan currently shares the record for the most number of World Snooker Championship titles in the modern era with Stephen Hendry, who collected all seven of his Crucible crowns during his supreme dominance of the 1990s.
O’Sullivan made his Crucible debut in 1993, during his rookie season as a professional where he won 10 consecutive qualifying round matches to reach the 32-player main draw in Sheffield.
Despite his well-documented issues and regular hiatus’ from the sport, O’Sullivan has always attended snooker’s annual blue riband event. In 2024, O’Sullivan extended his own record for the most number of Crucible appearances to 32 - all of these have been in successive years since playing on the grand stage for the first time in ‘93.
When did Ronnie O’Sullivan win his World Championship titles?
Unlike Hendry, O’Sullivan’s world title haul has come across a far wider span, and three different decades.
UK Championship and Masters titles - the other two events in snooker’s ‘Triple Crown’ - arrived for O’Sullivan when he was a teenager, but he had to wait until he was 25 to reach his first World Championship final in 2001 where he defeated fellow ‘Class of 92’ member John Higgins 18-14 in the title match to add his name to the roll of honour.
O’Sullivan joined an even more exclusive club in 2004 when he became a multiple-time world champion after recovering from 5-0 down to dispatch Graeme Dott, 18-8.
A hat-trick was completed in 2008 with an 18-8 win over Ali Carter - earlier in the event, O’Sullivan compiled his third Crucible 147. Four years later, Carter was on the receiving end again in the final as O’Sullivan claimed his fourth accolade with an 18-11 victory.
Perhaps O’Sullivan’s most remarkable world title triumph - and maybe the best feat of his entire career - came 12 months later at the 2013 Championship.
Having played just one professional match all season - a relatively low-key PTC event away from the television cameras - O’Sullivan returned to defend his world title, and he successfully did that with an 18-12 success over Barry Hawkins in the showpiece fixture. At the time, O’Sullivan was only the third person in the Crucible era to win in back-to-back years.
In 2013, Ronnie O'Sullivan won the World Championship after a year off 😲
Check out his highest break of the final 🔥
A third consecutive final was reached in 2014, but O’Sullivan experienced his first loss in a world final when Mark Selby defeated him 18-14 in an all-time classic final.
It wasn’t until six years later that O’Sullivan reached the final again, this time during the ‘Covid World Championship’ with either no or limited live audiences in attendance. An 18-8 win over Kyren Wilson put O’Sullivan on six world crowns - level with Ray Reardon and Steve Davis.
But just two years later, O’Sullivan joined Hendry on seven World Championship titles after an 18-13 victory against Judd Trump in the final.
Is Ronnie O’Sullivan playing at the 2025 World Snooker Championship?
Following weeks of intense speculation as to whether he would, O’Sullivan confirmed through an exclusive interview with TNT Sports that he will be playing at this year’s competition at the Crucible.
Until his announcement, it was unclear if O’Sullivan would compete, as he hadn’t featured on the professional World Snooker Tour circuit since the start of January when he deliberately broke his cue in frustration after his performances at the behind-closed-doors Championship League Invitational in Leicester.
Since that walk-out, O’Sullivan withdrew from several tournaments, including the 2025 Masters at the Alexandra Palace in London where he would have been the defending champion.
The seven-time Crucible victor said he would leave it late until he decided, but there were positive signs beforehand, including footage of a speedy maximum 147 break he made with his new cue whilst playing in his academy is Saudi Arabia.
Who and when is Ronnie O’Sullivan playing next at the Crucible in the 2025 World Snooker Championship?
Despite several months of inactivity on the sport’s premier circuit, O’Sullivan is still the number five seed for this year’s edition, meaning he went straight though to the main 32-player draw for the televised stages at the Crucible.
Following the live draw on Thursday morning, O’Sullivan was randomly drawn against familiar rival Ali Carter, in what many are describing as a ‘grudge match’.
The best of 19 frames (first to 10) encounter will be played across two sessions on the afternoons of Tuesday 22nd and Wednesday 23rd April. Information on how to watch is here.
O’Sullivan and Carter do not get on, and neither make a secret about that. In terms of their career head-to-head record on big stages, it is almost a complete whitewash for O’Sullivan - he leads the count 20-1.
However, that one win for Carter came during their most recent meeting at the Crucible in 2018. That feisty round two clash featured the famous 'Bargegate' incident in the middle of the match that resulted in a heated verbal exchange between the two on the hallowed Crucible carpet that referee Paul Collier had to put a stop to.
Since then, though, O'Sullivan has got the better of Carter in their six most recent ties (away from the Championship League), including the 2024 Masters final at the Alexandra Palace in London, where there were again words of disagreement, after the match.
How well has Ronnie O’Sullivan been playing this season? What are his results like?
Even by his own remarkable standards, last season was a sensational one for O'Sullivan as he won five titles, including Triple Crown triumphs at the UK Championship and Masters.
However, this 2024/25 season has been one of frustration and disappointment - even before his pause.
The season didn't start badly for O'Sullivan. After a phase one exit from the Championship League Ranking Event, he made back-to-back semi-finals at the Shanghai Masters and then the Xi'an Grand Prix - losing to Judd Trump and Kyren Wilson, respectively.
At the big-money, inaugural Saudi Arabia Snooker Masters in Riyadh, O'Sullivan won his opening two matches before bowing out to Si Jiahui in the quarter-finals.
A bizarre performance at the subsequent English Open - where he played the majority of his match left-handed - saw him eliminated in his opening match by He Guoqiang.
It wasn't until several weeks later that O'Sullivan was back in action after missing the British, Wuhan, and Northern Ireland Opens.
At the International Championship in China, he won two matches before losing in the last 32 to Pang Junxu.
In November, having looked brilliant as he went 3-0 up, O'Sullivan lost first round at the Champion of Champions to Xiao Guodong, who came back to win 4-3.
It was a similar story in York less than a fortnight later as O'Sullivan defended the UK Championship. He fashioned two century breaks on his way to a 4-2 lead in his round one match, but Barry Hawkins strung together the final four frames for a 6-4 victory and to send the reigning champion out.
Ronnie withdrew from the Scottish Open at the start of December, and his last action of 2024 was just before Christmas at the Riyadh Season Championship in the Middle East where he was the title holder.
The Englishman swept aside Ding Junhui 4-0 in his opening assignment before losing 4-2 to eventual champion Mark Allen. This was the last time that O'Sullivan played on television.
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