Snooker: O'Sullivan seeks 'more to life' after fresh hint at retirement

Former world No 1 Ronnie O'Sullivan again threatened to retire from snooker after his 6-5 defeat by Judd Trump in the UK Championship yesterday.

The 36-year-old, who spurned chances to win the last-16 match, has not won a ranking event for two years and is now down to 12th in the world rankings. "I don't want to take the shine off Judd but I seriously can't see me having much longer playing," he said. "I think there's more to life, or there is for me."

O'Sullivan, who turned professional in 1992, has made several threats to quit, the most recent of which was in March following his first-round defeat at the China Open, which was the fourth successive time he had lost in the opening round.

The three-times world champion, who has won 22 ranking titles, has battled with depression in recent years and has been seeing sports psychologist Dr Steve Peters to try to solve his problems. "He'll kill me for saying this and opening up like this," O'Sullivan said. "I will talk to him. For my own piece of mind, my own life, there is life beyond snooker. I still want to work and I'm sure I'll find stuff to do but I want to share my life with someone.

"I don't want to be living on my own, I don't want to travel around the world on my own feeling anxious, carrying these emotions. To be the real Ronnie, I need to get away from what's causing the problem."

Trump, who will play John Higgins or Stephen Maguire in the quarter-finals, had a different view of the enthralling encounter, which featured nine breaks in excess of 50 in the 11 frames. "I think I got outplayed, my safety wasn't great and I let him in first in over half of the frames," 22-year-old Bristolian Trump said.