RONNIE O’SULLIVAN has regained his mojo on the snooker table thanks to the skills of a master cuemaker from Bangkok.
At the start of this year, the Rocket, 49, was in a bad place, snapping his favourite cue in half in a moment of rage before throwing it in the bin.
Ronnie O’Sullivan has Sunny Akani to thank for making him a new cue[/caption]
The seven-time world champion blamed his meltdown in January at a low-key event in Leicester on feelings of “snooker depression” and “stage fright”.
For the Crucible World Championship, he used borrowed equipment and though he made the semi-finals – where he was crushed 17-7 by eventual champion Zhao Xintong – he changed his cue tip TWICE during that contest.
Yet this season he is a transformed man, winning five of his seven matches and notably hitting TWO 147s against Chris Wakelin in the same semi-final of the Saudi Arabia Masters – for which he banked a £147,000 bonus.
The improvement is all down to a new cue handed to him by mastermind Sunny Akani, a professional player who also has a sideline in producing superb cues for his rivals.
Known as The Sunshine Kid, Thailand’s Akani, 30, believes a snooker cue is not just a tool but an extension of the player’s arm.
O’Sullivan feels so comfortable with what the world No.72 has created that he will head to this week’s Xi’an Grand Prix – he plays Ukrainian Iulian Boiko in round one on Tuesday – in a confident mood.
Now based in Dubai, O’Sullivan told SunSport he is getting bang for his buck when it comes to competition thanks to the Far Eastern master craftsman.
He said: “It was my friend in Dubai, Muhammad, who I’ve known since 1993.
“We connected about three years ago when I was on holiday in Dubai.
“We just picked up again. And he was saying to me: ‘You must try Sunny Akani’s cue.’
“I thought, Sunny Akani, he’s a snooker player. He can’t possibly make good cues.
“Anyway, Muhammad kept going on, saying: ‘You will like it, you will like it.’
“And I thought, oh, God, I’ve heard this all before. Anyway, I tried one of his cues. It wasn’t my dimension, but I thought, actually, it’s pretty good.
“I said to Muhammad: ‘Sunny made this?’ He was like, yeah. So, I got Sunny to make a cue for my dimensions, and he made me two.
“I picked one up, and I was like, wow – it’s the one that I had the two 147s with.
“I was like, this is amazing, this is incredible. It’s phenomenal. He’s a genius at what he does.
“It just all came good against Chris. It was amazing to hit two 147s plus a 142. I just felt great.
“When I realised there was £147,000 available, I thought, why not, let’s go for it. It shows that if you put a prize up, it gets me excited, you know.”
O’Sullivan was speaking at the launch of Pluto Snooker 900, the world’s first 24/7 dedicated snooker channel, which will stream free and on demand on Pluto TV.
The Snooker 900 format consists of 900 seconds (15 minutes) on the table, a 20-second shot clock, ball in hand for fouls and a sudden-death blue-ball deadlock shootout to settle ties.
The channel – which will initially broadcast 18 hours a week of live snooker from Monday to Wednesday – launches on Monday (October 6) with a Legends Week.
One of the opening matches will pit Jimmy White versus Ken Doherty from 2pm over seven frames of Snooker 900.
