Current world number one snooker player Ronnie O'Sullivan has challenged his tennis equivalent Novak Djokovic to a sporting contest, claiming that he would like to test himself against the world number one tennis star. This comes after the six time world champion was also invited for a sparring session with Liverpool UFC star Paddy Pimblett.
O'Sullivan recently reclaimed the world number one spot from Mark Selby and heads into the coming World Championship as one of the favourites, but this hasn't stopped the Londoner having a look at other sports. At the recent UFC event in London he struck up an unlikely friendship with 'The Baddy', which ultimately led to a sparring invite.
Speaking about Pimblett, he said: "I am definitely going to try and do some sparring with him, when I next go to Liverpool he has told me I have got to get in the cage. I went to Paddy’s last fight in London at the O2 with Damien Hirst, because he is a huge fan of UFC and knows the big bosses. We were sitting front row watching Paddy and Molly McCann too, and it was a great night.
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"I have got to know Paddy over the last few weeks. He is a super, lovely guy and is going to be a real superstar. Well, he is already really but he is going to be mega, he has that X-Factor. He just has an aura, everyone is talking about him. It was weird, my son was like ‘You went to the UFC, Paddy’s a legend’ and he loved it when I sent him a picture of us."
This has led the 46-year-old to look to further his horizons even more, setting his sights on Serbian tennis player Novak Djokovic. The Serb has been in the headlines in his own right this year after controversy surrounding his stance on vaccination, leading to his withdrawal from the Australian Open earlier this year.
Despite this, O'Sullivan revealed his admiration for the 20-time grand slam winner, he explained in the same interview: "I'm good at tennis. I’m sure I'm better at tennis than Novak is at snooker. If Novak is ready to play a few shots of snooker with me, he can always call me.
"You have to admire Djokovic. He is the best player of all time and will win the most Grand Slams in the history of tennis. There are also Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, the three of them are a sporting phenomenon."
"If we compare Novak and myself, we have different styles of play, I am more like Federer. Roger has self-confidence, but Novak is more of a mixture of styles and he has it all in him."
