Ronnie O'Sullivan lets out a long breath, scratches his forehead and begins to wipe tears from his eyes. 'You get a bit emotional sometimes,' says the seven-time world snooker champion, his gaze now firmly fixed on the floor rather than on his interviewer.
O'Sullivan has just been detailing the moment he sat in a courtroom aged 16 and watched his dad receive a life sentence for murder. And he has broken down at the part of the story where Ronnie Snr asks for a message to be relayed to his son just as he is taken away to the cells.