Ronnie O’Sullivan compares world champion Luca Brecel to himself

Brecel beat O’Sullivan in the quarter-finals at the Crucible on his way to a stunning first World Championship title, downing Mark Selby in the final in spectacular fashion.

The Rocket was hugely complimentary about the Bullet after the match, saying he is the most talented player he has ever seen, and he also relates to how Brecel plays the game.

‘If you look at the guy who’s just own the World Championship, Luca Brecel, if you look at the way he plays you’d say it’s not the way you’re supposed to learn how to play the game,’ O’Sullivan said on The Chris Evans Breakfast Show on Virgin Radio.

‘It’s very “make it up as you go along,” it’s very creative. Judd Trump as well, I fall into that bracket.

‘When I say I’m not suited to structure, structure doesn’t work for me because we’re feeling players, if we feel good the game becomes limitless options. That’s how my life’s kind of been.

‘I’ve learned to have structure within it because without structure you’re kind of all over the place, but there’s only so much structure I need and I’m prepared to have, because if you go too much that way I lose my flow.’

O’Sullivan says it is a natural occurrence stemming from how a player’s brain works as when he was learning the game he was trying to be a methodical player in the Steve Davis mold.

The Rocket believes it is finding the correct blend of instinctive, natural play and the more structured approach that brings about the greatest success for him.

‘I was always drummed into me as a kid that Steve Davis was someone I should follow, so that was how I went about trying to become the player I wanted to become,’ he said.

‘Jimmy White, Alex Higgins were never the people I’d follow, I was always very meticulous, tight on technique, very science based. You need that framework. Steve Davis and Stephen Hendry were the people I was trying to be like.

‘But I had a brain that worked a bit quicker so that’s why people say I’m a bit like a Jimmy White or a Alex Higgins because my brain works quicker.

‘In a way [I’m a hybrid of the two]. But when I was going more towards Alex Higgins, Jimmy White, pure instinct, I couldn’t win the World Championship, which was something I always wanted to do.

‘So I had to take my game apart in 2000, went to see a coach in Bristol, Frank Adamson, I’d seen what he’d done with other players. I said, if you can do that with me then I can become world champion, but if I’d never changed I’d never have become world champion.’

MORE : Ronnie O’Sullivan explains why he feels he has underachieved in snooker

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