He’s widely regarded as one of the greatest players to grace the green cloth, but Ronnie O’Sullivan admitted he would love another stint as world number one.

The Rocket has not occupied the top of the rankings since 2010, with current number one Mark Selby being in place since February 2015.

O’Sullivan acknowledged his lack of appearances at some tournaments is costing him ranking points – amid his ongoing row with World Snooker chief Barrie Hearn about the amount of tournaments on the calendar.

And the five-time world champion added he was pleased with his performances keeping him in the top 16, but another spell atop the tree would be a superb achievement.

“You have to find ways in order for you to complete and be in a certain frame of mind to achieve being number one,” he said. “Because if you start going ‘I want to be number one’, you start telling the world that, then you’re just setting yourself up for a big fall.

“The process becomes more intense whereas if you let your snooker do the talking, all the other stuff deals with itself.

“I don’t play enough – if I played as many tournaments as everybody else, I probably would have been number one [since last time], but when you’re only playing half the tournaments, I think I do well to stay in the top 16.

“If I got to number one… it would be an amazing achievement.”

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