SHAUN MURPHY has accused Ronnie O’Sullivan of verbally abusing him when he was just 12.
The pair have shared centre stage in the sport for years and forged one of snooker’s greatest rivalries of all time.
Shaun Murphy accused Ronnie O’Sullivan of verbally abusing him when he was just 12[/caption]
O’Sullivan has gone back and forth with Murphy over the years[/caption]
It has led to plenty of competition and verbal back and forths away from the table too – despite mutual respect between them.
But Murphy has claimed the feud began when they were just young lads.
He told David Hendon for the book Pots of Gold: A History of Snooker: “We fell out when I was young.
“Ronnie verbally abused me when I was 12 and I never forgave him. I vividly remember it.
“I still have immense respect for his levels of play as a snooker player. I watch in awe at the things he’s able to do, because I know how hard it is.
“His ability as a player is completely unmatched.”
O’Sullivan is yet to respond to the accusation.
Murphy, who at 43 is six years younger than the Rocket, has only gone head-to-head with his great rival once in the last five years.
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They played each other in the semi-finals of the 2024 Masters – with O’Sullivan winning 6-2.
Murphy says O’Sullivan could have done more to be an ambassador for snooker – like Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic are for tennis.
He said: “One of the reasons I idolised Steve Davis so much was I was brought up in a world where being the greatest meant a lot more than how good you were at playing snooker, and unfortunately, for all of the good things Ronnie has done in terms of his snooker ability, I think he’s done an equal amount of, if not more, damage to the sport from an ambassadorial point of view.
“I think it’s such a shame that he hasn’t done for snooker in his ambassadorial position the things that people he says he looks up to – like Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic – have done, that he hasn’t taken a leaf out of their book and treated the sport that’s given him so much the same level of respect.
“If he had used his platform for good, he could have single-handedly dragged snooker into a different stratosphere in terms of popularity. He could have made us much more mainstream.”
O’Sullivan and Murphy have forged a great rivalry in snooker[/caption]
