He isn’t teetotal but has had problems with booze and drugs in the past. “And if you’re still hungry,” he says, “we’ll order some more.” Black cod, innit? Shall we go for that? Do you like rice?” O’Sullivan’s mother is Italian by way of Birmingham and I detect a little of this in his solicitous concern for my welfare at the table. “OK,” he tells the waiter, “we’ll just go for a nice bit of seafood, some cod, cod’s nice here. What else do you like? Meat, fish?” Anything, I say, as long as there’s no pineapple. “Prawns, already peeled, you know that one?” he asks the waiter, before turning to me. He orders our food as speedily as he plays. Today, he is open and easy-going, more relaxed than his turbulent temperament might suggest. “Everyone knows with me,” he said semi-apologetically after winning the World Championship final, “I’m up and down like a whore’s drawers.” In the week we meet, another fuss: O’Sullivan has suggested match-fixing in snooker could be widespread before retracting his comments a couple of days later. At times he has seemed to hate the game he has been fated to play so superlatively. My guest has a well-deserved reputation for controversy. Like many, I am a casual snooker follower but a big Ronnie fan: he is the game’s last big draw, a throwback to the characterful days when it attracted as many as 18m television viewers to watch players like Alex “Hurricane” Higgins and Jimmy “the Whirlwind” White. Who else could win, as he did in May, its most prestigious tournament, the world championship in Sheffield, despite not having played professional snooker for the previous 12 months? Imagine Roger Federer taking a year off then popping back to win Wimbledon. O’Sullivan, nicknamed “Rocket” for the exhilarating speed at which he can clear the balls on a snooker table, is for many the most talented player in the game’s history. He peers with interest at a dish with an open-shell tiger prawn that is being carried to a nearby table. “It’s a local for me and the food’s really nice,” the 37-year-old explains in a softly spoken Essex accent. Ronnie O’Sullivan, current and five-time world snooker champion, has eaten here a couple of times before. Lunch with one of the world’s most talented and complicated sportsmen is at Roka, a sleek Japanese-fusion restaurant packed with chattering expense-account lunchers in London’s Canary Wharf. Simply sign up to the Life & Arts myFT Digest - delivered directly to your inbox.
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