The veteran apologised to the Ally Pally crowd following his quarter-final victory over Barry Hawkins as his performance was not up to his standard. Snooker icon Steve Davis noted this and claimed that the seven-time Masters champion should focus on the result rather than the manner of victory.
But O’Sullivan has insisted that he does not consider the crowd when playing. “I just heard what Steve Davis said. He said I shouldn’t try to entertain the crowd,” O’Sullivan told the BBC.
“But I never have tried to entertain the crowd, I’ve just always tried to go out there and play snooker the way I know I can. If the crowd enjoy that, then great, but that’s never been my sort of philosophy. I just want to play the game well and if I don’t play well then I get quite frustrated.
“At the start of the match there were a few mistakes but then I cleaned it up a little bit. I need to do that these days because I can’t pot as well as these guys but I can make good breaks amongst the balls and make up for it that way. I won the match.”
