Ronnie O’Sullivan says he would encourage children to play Snooker 900 over the traditional game because it is much easier.
Snooker 900 is played over 15-minute (900-second) frames, with a shot clock and tweaked rules, including ball-in-hand for a foul.
After initially just featuring amateur players, 900 events have grown and top professionals have competed in the short-format tournaments.
The biggest yet was the Snooker 900 Global Championship in May, which saw O’Sullivan beat Luca Brecel in the final in Reading to land the £25,000 top prize.
After lifting the trophy, O’Sullivan called for a Snooker 900 tour to come into place, hailing the format’s creator Jason Francis.
‘Jason’s come up with an amazing format and I just think he’s hit the sweet spot with snooker, really,’ he said. ‘If Jason gets some sort of tour going, some backing or whatever, I’m sure this will be here forever.’
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O’Sullivan, who is described as a ‘partner in the project’ of Snooker 900, says he would encourage young players to look at the short format over the more popular form of the game.
‘What I love about it is it hasn’t interfered with the actual game itself, but it’s kind of sped it up. It’s put a start and an end time to it,’ O’Sullivan said in an interview shown on Pluto TV.
‘So everyone knows where they are: players, fans, TV, whoever’s involved. So it just makes it much more systematic, but there’s still lots of good snooker.
‘I just think it’s a great format. Snooker’s a hard game. If you play traditional snooker, it’s a tough game. I always said, and I stand by, I’d never say to my son, “play snooker.” I try and take him away from it. If you say, I want to play 900, I go, “yeah, fine.”
‘I believe in 900. I believe it’s enjoyable snooker. If you want painful snooker, go and play the WST tour, that’s the F1. That’s hard, you’re going to have to really grind out.
‘But if you want to be a touring car racing driver and you love driving, you want to make a living and have fun and just have a good life, go play 900. You can be the best in the world at 900.
‘So I believe in it, and it’s something I would encourage juniors to play. Let your son go and play 900. I wouldn’t say go into Sheffield or go to China and go to them academies, that’s too hard.
‘That’s like being in Oxford or Cambridge, you know. For the very, very few, but we want to encourage everyone. It’s a level playing field. Anyone can do it.’
Francis has big plans for Snooker 900, but it cannot yet offer a financially-rewarding career like traditional snooker does.
However, O’Sullivan hopes a tour can be created to showcase the sport in adifferent way which could be more attractive to younger generations.
‘For me, my legacy would be providing a tour, hopefully,’ he said. ‘We want to have summer camps for juniors where they play snooker, but it’s just 900. That’s what I believe in, that’s what I’m happy to get behind.
‘We want to catch them young and just take them all the way through. They’ve got a choice for tennis, golf, we need to give them the snooker option, and I want to give them a healthy snooker option. I feel like the 15-minute frames just keeps it modern day. This is something I’m really pleased to be getting behind.’