Stephen Hendry and Ronnie O’Sullivan’s grudge match from 2002 is very well documented, but the Scot says it was not just the explosive pre-match comments from the Rocket that wound him up.
The two snooker legends met in the semi-finals of the World Championship 24 years ago in a blockbuster contest over a best-of-33 frames.
The match was made a lot spicier by O’Sullivan’s unexpected comments about Hendry after downing Stephen Lee in the quarter-finals.
Insults, which Hendry remembers gave their game unique among all the matches he played over his career.
‘Thinking of the iconic matches we’ve had. Probably the only grudge match I’ve ever had in my career was against Ronnie O’Sullivan, 2002 semi-final at the World Championship,’ Hendry said on his Cue Tips YouTube channel.
‘I was in my room the morning of the match. The guy who used to drive me round came in and said “have you seen the papers?” I said, “no I’ve not seen the papers.” He showed me the paper and Ronnie had said all this stuff. He was quite close to Naseem Hamed, the boxer, and I don’t know whether that crowed stoked it up.
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‘Basically, he said that he never liked me and the only reason he spoke to me was because he thought he had to speak to me because we were at the same places. And he was going to send me back to Scotland to my sad little life.
‘So my motivation was done there and then, I thought, ok if he doesn’t like me I won’t speak to him, I’ll just go out and play, I’ll just go out and play the match.’
O’Sullivan’s shock comments at the Crucible in 2002 were: ‘The most satisfying thing for me would be to send him home to Scotland as quickly as possible for a nice summer off. I’ll say hello to him because it’s hard to ignore someone – but he’s not my cup of tea.
‘I know if I do get beat and he comes up and does a moonie in front of me and goes, “Nah nah nah”, I’ll just look at him and say, “Well done, go back to your sad little life”.’
Hendry won the match 17-13 and remembers being disappointed by the pre-match barbs as he felt he got on well with the Rocket.
O’Sullivan’s role as a pantomime villain even extended into the match, where Hendry says his opponent was laughing when he missed shots.
‘I think it was probably the last time I played my best snooker at the Crucible, that semi-final,’ remembers the 57-yea-rold. ‘I went on to lose the final to [Peter] Ebdon, but didn’t play the way I did in the semis against Ronnie.
‘It was quite disappointing, actually, when it all happened because I liked Ronnie. Obviously many months later he said he was encouraged to say all these things by these guys. Obviously we get on great now, but I was disappointed, but I just used it to psych myself up to win.
‘It’s probably the only match in my career that had any sort
of bad feeling.
‘I remember during the match if I missed any easy shot I could see Ronnie coming to the table laughing, smirking that I’d missed these easy shots. That got to me even more. I was just getting more and more mad, and more and more determined to win the match.’
After the match in Sheffield, O’Sullivan was unrepentant, saying: ‘If he wants to say anything, he can come and say it to me, but to be honest I won’t lose too much sleep over Stephen Hendry not talking to me.
‘He doesn’t say anything to me anyway. Some days he looks at you and some days he blanks you. I’d rather he blank me all the time.
‘I’ve got no regrets about what I said and I’ll probably say something along the same lines again in the future because I really don’t care.’
However, O’Sullivan later changes his tune, saying in 2020: ‘That was terrible. I blamed myself for that.
‘It should never have happened. But I’m also blaming Naz for getting me so revved up. He said to me the day before the match: “You should be more like this, or more like that.”
‘It was okay for Naz because he was a boxer, but I’m a snooker player. You have to respect your opponent. In boxing, they like that sort of trash talk to sell tickets. It wasn’t really me. I was easily led. When I said it, and when it came out, I was gutted.
‘It was a big mistake on my part.’