O’Sullivan takes steps to stop torment: ‘It’s like an illness, an obsession’

The Rocket has had an extremely successful season on the table, winning five tournaments including the UK Championship and Masters, but he does not feel good about his game.

The 48-year-old is always searching for perfection in how he is cueing but has rarely felt content over the last couple of years and reckons this season has been one of his worst when it comes to technique.

‘This year I’ve got the wins but technically I’ve been terrible, probably my worst year technically,’ he told ITV4. ‘I’ve had to grind out the wins and that’s never going to give me much satisfaction.’

He added: ‘There has been the odd match. Probably been four or five. In Tianjin [International Championship] I played well, from start to finish, in that tournament. Wuhan [Open] I played alright. Played a few good matches in the UK. That is about it. Most of it has not been great.’

Due to this sense of frustration and dissatisfaction, O’Sullivan has turned again to renowned psychiatrist Steve Peters, who he has worked with on and off since 2011.

‘I had to call Steve Peters up the other day,’ said O’Sullivan after beating Ali Carter 10-2 in the Tour Championship quarter-finals. ‘I said, “look, I am really struggling, it’s doing my head in, trying to figure it out”.

‘It has been the story of my life really. So, it’s nothing new. But I decided I would go back to work with Steve Peters, try to change my thinking and hopefully once I have changed my thinking, I will try and be a bit less of a perfectionist. Hopefully then my game will fall into place because I am an instinctive player and thinking is not good for me.’

While the Rocket feels he has been poor technically, he thinks it is something he can fix mentally, by convincing himself to stop searching for technical perfection.

He is still working with coaches on the technical side, but feels Peters is the one who can get him back where he wants to be.

‘I just try and coach myself most of the time but at the moment I’ve got about three coaches on the go,’ he said. ‘I’ve been round the block a lot so I kind of know if something’s going to work or not going to work.

‘I’ll still be working and stuff like that, but the bottom line is I just have to go out there and just..work with Steve Peters now and do the work that gets my head in the right frame of mind. Maybe handle not playing my best and still apply myself.

He sees returning to work with Peters as crucial for his chances of winning an eighth world title this year, something that he is putting all his efforts into.

‘Absolutely. Part of working with Steve is being prepared to do that,’ he said of going all out for the World Championship title. ‘Having a winning mentality, the right mentality.

‘I’d much rather be playing well and just the instinctive love of the game will take over but it’s not happening and I just feel like I was dementing myself.

‘I got to the point where I was getting stage fright, even just in exhibitions I was scared to go out there and play because I just thought I’m not going to be able to pot one ball.

‘It was embarrassing and that’s not a good place to be as a sportsman, when you’re that low on confidence of whether you can perform or not. It’s not a good place to be.

‘So I decided that’s as bad as it can ever get, all I know is to go to Steve Peters and go, “I need to get on top of this.” It’s like an illness. Like a nervous twitch. It’s something in your mind like an obsession and I’ve got to break that obsession.

‘I don’t think it’ll happen overnight, it’ll take time and I’ve only been doing it four or five days properly but hopefully it will give me a bit more longevity, a bit more peace of mind, a bit more acceptance and a bit more like…ok, don’t expect to play brilliant every match.’

The world number one is not panicking, feeling that it is partly his own fault for not keeping up with the practices he learned from Peters in the past.

He needs to routinely work on keeping his busy mind under control, something he doesn’t think other top players have to deal with as much.

‘It’s not a bad thing I’m doing, it’s just that I’m a bit lazy,’ he said. ‘I worked really hard for the first two years with Steve because it was new and I had to do it.

‘I’ve still used a lot of what Steve showed me when I thought I needed to do it, but I haven’t made it part of my overall package. Sometimes I just want to play, hit balls and feel good. I’m an instinctive sort of player, so to go non-instinctive, logical and be really like that about things is difficult for me to do, but I know it’s the right thing to do.

‘I just go on autopilot and do my own thing. He said it’s a bit like going to the gym. If you stop going to the gym you lose your muscle mass. He said, “The stuff you do with me, I can only show you but you have to do the work.” It’s quite repetitive but once you do it, it sort of tightens your mind up a bit.

‘For me I need it. I think a lot of players, like John Higgins, Neil Robertson, maybe Judd, they don’t overcomplicate things, they’re probably not as complex as me. They’re just a bit more straightforward. I think someone like me needs to quieten my mind down and just try and play and not be too hard on myself.’

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