'Scared' Ronnie O'Sullivan makes World Championship U-turn - 'I felt like I would embarrass myself'

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After his shock World Open final defeat, Ronnie O'Sullivan is edging towards playing at the 2026 Halo World Championship. The seven-time world champion admitted that he "was too scared" to enter the tournament initially, but has redeemed himself of late and will likely compete for a record-breaking eighth title. "I can only take one day, one week at a time," he said.

WATCH IN FULL - Every pot from O'Sullivan's history-making break of 153

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Ronnie O'Sullivan has admitted that he will "probably" play at the 2026 Halo World Championship following his World Open final defeat to Thepchaiya Un-Nooh.

After making a record-breaking 153 earlier this week, The Rocket was on the wrong end of a maximum as his Thai opponent secured only his second ranking title.

Speaking afterwards, O'Sullivan revealed that he had not planned to compete for a record eighth title in Sheffield amid worries over his game, but changed his mind after a "positive week" in Yushan.

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"I can only take one day, one week at a time," he said. "I can’t look any further than a week at the moment, with my career. I’ve not been playing for a reason, just because I haven’t had a game good enough to compete. So I’ve been trying to find that on the practice table and hopefully bring it to the match table.

"I’ve had quite a good year, really. I felt like I played really quite good at the start of the season, better than I was, and then I had a dip for a couple of months. January and February weren’t good, and I thought, 'Here we go,' but I’ve managed to pull it back a little bit.

"We’ll just see how it goes. I wasn’t even going to play in the World Championship 10 days ago because I was too scared. I felt like I would embarrass myself. But now I feel I probably will go, because I feel like I might pot a few balls. It’s not great, I’m not in a great, great place with it, but I’m better than I was maybe two weeks ago."

Watch in FULL as Un-Nooh makes 'genius' 147 in World Open final against O'Sullivan

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He added: "On the whole, I’m in a much better place now than I was in the last three years and I was two weeks ago. But it could easily fall apart and be in a bad place again soon.

"I’m just taking each day and week as it comes. Not getting too excited or too down."

O'Sullivan beat Shaun Murphy, Ryan Day and Wu Yize on his way to the final, where he displayed some of the best snooker he has played for a while.

He led Un-Nooh 4-0 in the final, before the 40-year-old claimed six frames in a row ahead of a high-quality finish.

O'Sullivan wrestled back the lead with three successive centuries, before Un-Nooh levelled and then made breaks of 132, 147 and 131 to claim the title.

"It’s been a positive week," O'Sullivan added. "Thepchaiya was unbelievable, deserves his victory. He played much better than me today. I watched his game yesterday in the semi-finals; he was strong. I couldn’t go with that; he was far too good for me.

"My game’s not good enough to go to that level, simple as that. It used to be. Everyone’s played okay against me this week, so my game is good enough to beat players playing okay.

"I just can’t get to the potting angle of certain shots. I can play maybe 60 to 70% of shots comfortably, but there are other shots I just don’t have in my locker.

"When someone plays like that, I’m just one-dimensional, really. It limits what I can do and the amount of pressure I can put on my opponent. I just have to accept that’s how it is."

Watch and stream the 2025/26 snooker season, including the World Championship, live on TNT Sports.

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