Steve Davis says Ronnie O’Sullivan has lost fear factor after early exit from World Snooker Championship
The five-time world champion was beaten 13-12 by Barry Hawkins in the second round in Sheffield
STEVE DAVIS reckons Ronnie O’Sullivan’s fear factor that left so many rivals trembling is a thing of the past.
The Rocket suffered a third big loss in three years at the World Championship in Sheffield this week.
Five-time world champion O’Sullivan, 40, the red-hot title favourite, went down 13-12 to Barry Hawkins in a thriller at the last-16 stage.
And that followed defeats to Stuart Bingham in the last eight 12 months ago, and Mark Selby in the final in 2014.
Golden oldie and six-time winner Davis, 58, who retired last week, still believes O’Sullivan can win again at the Crucible — but says it is only going to get harder.
And he is starting to suspect that Stephen Hendry’s record tally of seven world titles may now be out of reach.
Davis said: “I don’t think Ronnie is finished at the Crucible. He can win another world title — but the fear factor he once enjoyed here has gone.
“For him, it is a case of getting in a queue of potential winners, rather being a shoo-in for the world title.
“What happened in the last three years has made it much, much harder for Ronnie to get to Hendry’s seven world titles.
“The Selby final in 2014 was huge in that regard. If he had won that one it might already have happened.
“He is leaving it very late now to get to that mark. He is definitely odds against and if it was anyone other than Ronnie I’d probably say no.
“But such is his ability you have a suspicion he could still produce something unexpected.
“Ronnie talked about people wrongly giving the title to him before the start.
“I had that, and Stephen Hendry had it. It is a level of responsibility, you know it is not a done deal yourself, but you have to suffer it.
“It does put extra pressure on, and in a way Ronnie has it even harder.
“People think he will win, and they are desperate for him to win as well.
“With me and Stephen plenty of people didn’t want us to win — we could use that.
“So he has the pressures of being a sort of Jimmy White or Alex Higgins People’s Champion, as well as the Steve Davis or Stephen Hendry overwhelming favourite.
“That is a double whammy.”