Why Kyren Wilson's glorious rebirth is straight out of Ronnie O'Sullivan's classic snooker playbook

React to this story

Kyren Wilson has built upon becoming world champion for the first time by winning four more titles this season during the most successful campaign of his career. His 10-9 victory over Judd Trump at the Players Championship on Sunday was also his third victory over the world No. 1 in a major ranking final this season. The secret of his success has been a rebirth in his attacking approach.

‘What a walk-on!’ – Wilson dazzles audience with epic entrance during German Masters final

Video credit: TNT Sports

There have been two notable rebirths on the old green baize among the sport’s main protagonists in recent times.

One saw Mark Allen opt to swap his flashier side to align more with four-time world champions Mark Selby and John Higgins as a methodical master tactician, while the other has witnessed the once mechanical Kyren Wilson morph into a born-again attacking cue artist, who suddenly prefers to get frames won as quickly as possible.

Of course, there are many roads to heaven in snooker, and both strategies have borne outstanding success with both men achieving lifetime ambitions last May.

Shanghai Masters

Trump and Wilson show future can be bright for British snooker despite Hendry prediction

Yesterday at 08:50

Allen became only the 12th man in history to hold the world No. 1 spot after lifting the UK Championship, Players Championship, Northern Ireland Open, World Grand Prix and the invitational Champion of Champions during a sustained two-year period of success.

At the same time, Wilson celebrated carrying off a first world crown.

Interestingly enough, Wilson has flowered since conquering the Crucible with a stodgy 18-14 win in the final against Jak Jones on an exacting table giving way to his second coming both as a cut-throat match clincher and perhaps undervalued crowd-pleaser, who dances into matches before donning his game face.

His 10-9 win over Judd Trump in the final of the Players Championship in Telford on Sunday was his fourth ranking success of the season after victories at the Northern Ireland Open, Xi’an Grand Prix and German Masters, and carries his 2024/25 season’s earnings to a record £781,100.

With the Tour Championship and World Championship to come over the next three months, he could yet join Trump in going beyond the £1 million mark for a single campaign.

Upon initial inspection, there is hardly an exhaustive list of candidates who can combat peak Wilson as he bids to break the hoary old ‘Crucible Curse’ in becoming the first maiden winner at the Sheffield venue to successfully retain the sport's blue-chip event.

But that theory is for another day.

The purists might argue that strategic success is just as appreciable in snooker, but it is a lot more labour-intensive process on the senses than the aggressive high-wire act which Trump and Wilson deploy.

'TROUNCE YOUR OPPONENT'

Which approach is right? Nobody quite knows, which is the beauty of snooker's bewitching ability to provide room for all shapes and sizes to flourish with a winning mentality the ultimate aim.

That being acknowledged, Wilson’s approach seems to be the latest fashion manual in how to prevail under pressure in the modern era.

Just as crucially, it also provides a fabulous advert for the paying public to relate to a sport that was in the doldrums less than 20 years ago despite spawning national sporting icons in Alex 'Hurricane' Higgins and Jimmy 'Whirlwind' White.

"He’s speeded up his game and the idea is to trounce your opponent as quickly and as fast and as efficient as you can," said snooker GOAT Ronnie O’Sullivan about Wilson during last year's World Championship.

"That’s what he’s been doing this tournament better than anybody.

‘If you want to win tournaments regularly you want a long career, you’ve got to get them out the way quickly, without much effort.

"It sounds easy, but there’s an art to it. Once you find that secret, to have long sustained periods of success it’s got to come easy.

"You can’t keep grinding it out, you’ll end up doing your own head in."

‘Crucible is made for him’ - O’Sullivan backs Wilson to win at least four world titles

Video credit: TNT Sports

Trump almost found a way to win in Telford as he recovered from 8-5 and 9-7 behind – compiling his 92nd century of the season in doing so – before Wilson secured the decider after doing likewise against Barry Hawkins 10-9 at the German Masters in February.

The two leading men in the rankings have won seven tournaments this season and both men are inside the top 30 fastest on tour in average shot times.

But even the effervescent Trump appears unsure how to handle the new, more menacing version of Wilson when the heat comes on having suddenly lost three major finals to the world No. 2 this season in Xi'an, Belfast and Telford.

That was best summed up when he looked set to move 4-2 clear in the first session.

Faced with a tough pink along the top cushion, the 30-time ranking event winner opted to play the pot at pace when a dead roll would have surely delivered the frame.

The pink stayed out, and he failed to get cover behind the black as Wilson restored parity at 3-3. As it turned out, a key moment in a match laced with considerable mood change.

'MAN OF THE FUTURE'

Yet mental intimidation and the scrambling of an opponent’s radar has always been a key part of the deal in snooker, a sport that involves as much machismo as boxing.

The only difference being, the competitors don bow ties to carry out the clubbing.

While Jack Lisowski might be an O’Sullivan’s doppelganger in terms of style at the table, maintaining optimum concentration appears to remain his major impediment.

Wilson has clearly studied what makes the seven-time world champion tick in terms of his movements during matches that has given O'Sullivan a crucial edge over a wide array of opponents since turning professional in 1992, incredibly spanning an era between Aussie snooker duo Eddie Charlton and Neil Robertson.

The sensation that the table belongs to him and his opponent is merely a tourist has always been part of O'Sullivan's armoury during his rise to a record 41 ranking title victories.

When O'Sullivan thumped Wilson 9-2 in the 2017 English Open final, he saw enough in his opponent to comment: "He will undoubtedly be a world champion. He's the man of the future, and I'm just enjoying trying to hold on to him."

O'Sullivan also defeated Wilson 18-8 during the 2020 world final amid the Covid days.

He suggested Wilson make slight alterations to his cue action when he was filleted 6-1 by Trump in the quarter-finals of the 2022 Masters having lost 6-0 to Bristol's finest at the Champion of Champions only two months earlier.

'Tears are flowing!' - Wilson clinches Crucible glory with emotional celebrations

Video credit: TNT Sports

"I don’t mean change your cue action completely, that is hard, but we all do and there’s ways of making that white a bit heavier and softer just to play with more feel rather than be mechanical," said O'Sullivan.

"It is all very well having a straight cue action but how many times do you have to pot long blues? Most of the damage is done around the pink and black and you have to score.

"Sometimes under pressure, he loses his cue ball and under pressure, those shots become hard shots.

"He is a great player, a fantastic player, but his good game is not as good as the top four or five."

'QUITE A POOR SEASON'

Wilson does not take defeat well, as was illustrated by his thorny comments after being edged 10-8 by Shaun Murphy in the Masters final in January, but his response to losing is probably as impressive as his victories.

Beatings are not all bad if you take learnings from them.

The Kettering professional feels more comfortable in his own waistcoat having returned to the style of play he enjoyed in his formative years as a kid.

Rather than fraternise with long bouts of safety play, Wilson is clearly of a similar mind to O'Sullivan that a quick kill is better for his own mind and body, rather than becoming embroiled in mentally undulating attritional combat.

Six-time world champion Steve Davis once enjoyed tactical supremacy against his main rivals in the 1980s, but was found wanting when he came up against Stephen Hendry at the outset of the 1990s.

Hendry decided early on that his heavier scoring game was always likely to overpower the lighter jabbing tactics of Davis, whose failure to kill off frames at a single visit became a painful obstacle during his demise.

He was right, and it remains very much a theme of Wilson’s approach to ringcraft. Safety is only worthwhile if you are scoring from it.

But self-belief is also required when scoring is the only way to seriously trouble the thought process of an opponent like Trump at the elite level with the Bristol professional only eight centuries short of becoming the first man in history to twice reach a century of centuries.

Wilson is hardly a lightweight in such a respect having weighed in with 59 this season, one behind Selby's 60 in third place.

O'Sullivan, Davis, Hendry, White? Snooker stars name their childhood heroes

Video credit: TNT Sports

"It’s a huge tournament to win and any final you can beat Judd Trump in is always a feather in the cap," said Wilson. "I didn’t even qualify for these events last year.

"I had quite a poor season leading up to the World Championship. It has been a conscious effort to make the most of it and I did that today by winning the trophy."

The filmmaker JJ Abrams was once described as a master upholsterer when he directed Star Wars: The Force Awakens in 2015 – the same year Wilson won the first of his 10 ranking titles 10-9 against Trump at the Shanghai Masters – building upon the origins story of George Lucas' original trilogy.

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery in any walk of life.

Wilson has upholstered the style of his game to one that wins, entertains and like Rocket Ronnie, his speed of shot and thought is also aesthetically pleasing for fans.

For Wilson, the force has awakened.

That he has similar animalistic instincts to O’Sullivan in such an unforgiving arena is perhaps the biggest compliment you can pay him.

- - -

Watch and stream top snooker action, including the World Championship, live and on demand on TNT Sports and discovery+

Shanghai Masters

Trump fears 'uphill struggle' to retain world No. 1 spot despite Shanghai win

02/08/2026 at 20:25

Shanghai Masters

'Hard enough playing Judd Trump' - Wilson swats away fly in Shanghai final

02/08/2026 at 14:24