Ronnie O'Sullivan should be retired by now. He told me as much when we talked some years ago. He gave the age at which he would be done with snooker as 45, maximum. It's the eyes, you see. Snooker isn't just about potting balls. Everyone thinks they can pot, the way they think they can throw a dart. But they can't see a shot the way O'Sullivan does.
That minute detail is the difference between staying on or being consigned to an observer's seat while an opponent clears up. It is the precision required to escape from a snooker or make a long pot and return the white to its perfect position on the table, not just for the next shot, but for the whole break mapped out ahead.
You need a pilot's vision for that. And O'Sullivan explained that by 45 he would no longer be able to see with the absolute clarity to compete with the best. As a theory it wasn't far wrong.
Ronnie O'Sullivan (above) claimed his seventh World Championship title on Monday
He's 46 now. And world champion, again. For a record-equalling seventh time. But he's the oldest world champion in history. Nobody has ever seen the game at his level through the eyes of a 46-year-old.
Yet here he is once more. The supreme player at The Crucible. Sometimes there is a champion and several others who might have been. This year, everyone agreed that O'Sullivan was head and shoulders the best around. That from the first frame to the last, it was going to be his crown.. Not bad for an old man. Not bad for a man who sometimes makes you think he hates it.
For that day, O'Sullivan gave the impression he wouldn't be around for long, even if he somehow resisted the ravages of age and stayed 20/20. 'I can't be the ambassador of smiles,' he said. He has a love-hate relationship with his sport. Loving the competition, working extraordinarily hard to be the best at it, but sometimes hating its interior nature, the absence of sunlight, all darkness, shadows and silence when he could be out running.
O'Sullivan became the oldest world champion in Crucible history by beating Judd Trump
The 46-year-old equalled Stephen Hendry's record in the modern era by winning 18-13
That is when we most often see each other now. On one of the tracks through Epping Forest, O'Sullivan in what from a distance looks like an Arsenal shirt, but is actually just red with white sleeves, keeping a decent pace with a group of friends. He always looks happy, always free. There is none of the angst he can bring to the baize, yet none of the brilliance, too.
