Ronnie O’Sullivan once shook his opponent’s hand in the middle of a frame and just walked out.
York, December 2006. UK Championship quarter-final. Best of 17. Ronnie’s 4-1 down, and the man across the table isn’t just anyone.
Frame six. Ronnie’s 24-0 up. He misses a red into the corner. He doesn’t go back to his chair. He shakes his opponent’s hand, then the referee’s, and he leaves the arena.
The match goes down as 9-1. Nine frames of war, over with one handshake.
Here’s the twist. The man who got that gift didn’t even win the title. He lost the final 10-6 to Peter Ebdon. Ronnie apologised. Months later he was docked 900 ranking points and paid around twenty thousand pounds.
So who was on the other end of that handshake? A seven-time world champion.
Stephen Hendry. The man who won almost everything, and got the strangest win of his life handed to him.
