Ronnie O'Sullivan's 147 refusal rescued snooker's maximum from its slough of mediocrity

On Monday, at the Welsh Open, snooker player Ronnie O'Sullivan declined – deliberately and knowingly – to make a shot that would almost certainly have given him a “perfect” 147 score. Not worth it, he said. Ten grand? “Too cheap,” said the greatest player of the modern game – and a bad, troubled boy, with histories of addiction and mental turmoil. “If it had been more, I'd have gone for the 147.”

Like me, you were possibly reminded of supermodel Linda Evangelista's era-defining 1990 remark: “We don't wake up for less than $10,000 a day.” Same kind of tin-eared entitlement. Or maybe you found yourself agreeing with Barry Hearn, the former chairman of the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association, who said: “Players have a duty to the fans to deliver the best standard and entertainment they can. Anything less is unacceptable and disrespectful to the paying public.”

Now, I have the greatest of respect for Barry Hearn. As a journalist, I spent good time with him back in snooker's 1980s heyday: at provincial tournaments, where he stalked backstage, always suited, ever smiling; and in Romford, at his offices, in a dreary Modernist block, with contract carpeting and unpitying fluorescent lights, with his team of snooker players coming and going. It was wonderful, the closest I'd been to the world of Minder or Guys and Dolls.

It's sweet madeleines like that which make me realise that I got it wrong about O'Sullivan's seemingly arrogant gesture. Hearn, too. The truth is,he's not being disrespectful at all. He's not short-changing his public. Far from it. His apparent entitlement and snottiness is the very whiff of greasepaint that snooker's (always well-aftershaved) crowd craves, now that the sport is some distance from its Eighties peak.

As do the wider public, who remember, fondly, those times. Snooker is, frankly, unbelievably boring to watch – even more so at the event than on television. Afternoons and early evenings crawl past, dustily. But every now and then, something special happens. Something worth all that watching and waiting. Back then, 147s were rare. Steve Davis only ever made one, in competition play. Jimmy White, too. Baddest of bad boys Alex Higgins never even managed that. Things changed with the next generation, though. Stephen Hendry made 11 of them. And O'Sullivan (so far) two more than that.

He has been making 147s for a quarter of a century now. He made his first when he was just 15. He has made them almost common. So the real thrill is not his making a 147 but his making the grand, theatrical gesture of refusing to make one. In that Welsh Open moment, he became a sporting legend. “You don't go to see Ronnie score a 147,” a (female) fan said. “You go to watch his genius. For those there, it will be a bigger badge of honour to have seen him chuck a 147 than to see him score one.”

He knew what he was doing, too. When his break reached 80, he checked what a 147 would earn him. Told it was £10,000, he realised that he was not just dealing in a debased currency but reinforcing that debasement. With logic worthy of, say, Jacques Derrida or even Homer Simpson, he explained: “It's like going into a Mercedes garage and when they say that you can have the car for £3,000, you reply: 'No way, that's too cheap. I'm not buying it for that.'” In his moment of refusal, he rescued snooker's maximum from its slough of mediocrity. “Certain things have value,” he said. “And a 147 is a special moment. I want it to feel special all round.”

Ronnie O'Sullivan is – or, at least, he should be – the personification of snooker. His parents owned a “string” of sex shops. He has not one but two native Chinese speakers working on his Sina Weibo (Chinese microblogging) account. He suffers from clinical depression. His father served 18 years for murder. He met the mother of two of his children at Narcotics Anonymous. He's even that most Essex cool of things, a dabbler in Buddhism.

Without wishing to sound callous or frivolous, isn't this the kind of baggage that we think our snooker players should carry? Maybe they have these kinds of lives and backgrounds so that we don't have to. But we can always dream. Of snooker's glory days gone by. And, with Ronnie O'Sullivan's help, its roisterous future. Perchance.

Ten tips about Ronnie

1. He made his first century break when he was just 10.

2. He's known as 'The Rocket'. But after addiction troubles, the fuel he uses is now tea.

3. He has a psychiatrist, Dr Steve Peters, in his team, and credits him with his recent return to mental equilibrium.

4. Essex-raised, he has DJed on Phoenix FM, the station for Billericay and Brentwood…

5. … but his 'entrance' song to competitions is likely to be 'A Man Should Better Himself', a piece of Chinese music.

6. Last year, he took off his shoes mid-match and played in his socks.

7. Fans bring photos, cues, programmes and shirts to be signed at exhibition games – he'll autograph anything.

8. He's a Labour supporter and has posted photos of himself at an Ed Miliband rally.

9. He received an OBE in the New Year Honours list.

10. He's on Twitter, and last week posted a selfie with 'Everyones [sic] a nightmare' on his T-shirt.