Building the perfect snooker player: Ronnie O'Sullivan, John Higgins and Mark Williams among the stars combined to create the ultimate champion

By Sporting Life

Snooker

Mon May 05, 2025 · 1M ago

If you could build the perfect snooker player, which attributes would you take from the many legends we've seen down the years?

Anyone who can be considered a 'great' in snooker has obviously needed to possess world class ability at all of the various different areas of the game in order to win multiple titles throughout their careers.

However, there's no doubt that many of them have earned reputations for being particularly exquisite at one or two specific facets of the sport compared to their rivals.

But what if you could make a Frankenstein's Monster of a snooker player, taking the best features of legends who have ever picked up a cue?

At the recent World Championship, we asked Shaun Murphy, Mark Selby, Neil Robertson and Barry Hawkins to selecting players of the past or present that best represent these seven key attributes; Break building, tactical/safety, long potting, cue action, rest play, fighting spirit and temperament.

Unsurprisingly the Class of 92 of Ronnie O'Sullivan, John Higgins and Mark Williams all got plenty of mentions but there were plenty of others who were used for the experiment...