Stephen Hendry has given Ronnie O’Sullivan his dues for one wild remark made about new world snooker champion Wu Yize.
Stephen Hendry has revealed Ronnie O’Sullivan’s Wu Yize prediction that got here true (Picture: Getty Photos) This text accommodates affiliate hyperlinks, we’ll obtain a fee on any gross sales we generate from it. Study extra
Seven-time world champion Stephen Hendry has lifted the lid on Ronnie O’Sullivan’s outstanding foresight concerning Wu Yize. It transpires that the Rocket had predicted China’s newest world champion would attain the very prime of the sport lengthy earlier than Monday’s historic victory.
Wu, 22, defeated Shaun Murphy 18-17 in an exhilarating finale in Sheffield to change into the second-youngest winner in World Snooker Championship historical past. The one participant to have overwhelmed that feat is Hendry himself, who was 21 when he claimed his first title again in 1990. The end result could have caught many off guard, Hendry included, but O’Sullivan noticed it coming from a substantial distance. At the very least that’s what Hendry suggests, having disclosed his fellow seven-time world champion had earmarked the teenager for greatness whereas he was nonetheless making his method within the sport.
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“Being trustworthy, I did not suppose Wu was able to win the World Championship,” Hendry wrote on his Cue Suggestions weblog. “I might heard Ronnie O’Sullivan say he’d be world champion inside three years and I did not suppose that might occur.
“I believed he was method behind Zhao Xintong by way of having the ability to win in Sheffield, however I feel when he beat Mark Selby within the second spherical, that is when he began to get my consideration as a result of Selby was considered one of my favourites to win it.”
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Wind the clock ahead to at the moment and it’s secure to say Wu has firmly established himself among the many elite. It was barely six months in the past the rising star claimed his first rating title; now he stands as the highest participant on the planet.
O’Sullivan, 50, was additionally among the many first to recognise Zhao Xintong’s distinctive high quality forward of his World Championship triumph in 2025. And simply as his prediction about China’s first Crucible champion proved spot-on, he has as soon as once more demonstrated his eye for expertise by figuring out Wu as the following huge factor.
Ronnie O’Sullivan:
“Wu Yize jogs my memory of a modern-day Steve Davis. After practising with him for 3 days in Hong Kong, I believed this child has bought a present.
He all the time will get good positions and features. He makes a tough recreation look fairly straightforward.” pic.twitter.com/7dyA4XbIxt
— I ❤️ Snooker (@ILoveSnooker_) Might 6, 2026
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“Among the pictures Wu was taking up, Selby could not imagine. He was virtually laughing in his chair,” Hendry continued. “That is what I used to be most impressed by.
“He performs the sport I performed. He backs himself to pot something at any stage, it doesn’t matter what stress is on, it doesn’t matter what place the match is at. He simply backs himself to pot the large pictures.”
It is honest to say ‘The King of the Crucible’ is now a agency believer himself. Hendry went on to supply a prediction of his personal, tipping each Wu and Zhao to “dominate the sport between them over the following few years.”
It speaks volumes about Wu’s mindset that his speedy precedence following Monday’s victory is to buy a brand new dwelling in Sheffield to help future title bids. Nonetheless, there’s at the very least one snooker legend who is just not in in the least stunned to see him sitting on the throne.
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