Ronnie O'Sullivan has admitted that he felt nervous while racking up his 13th career 147 break in yesterday's UK Championship.
The 39-year-old, who earlier this week hinted that he could pull out of the event due to a broken ankle, achieved the impressive feat on his way to booking a place in the quarter-finals with a 6-0 victory over Matthew Celt.
O'Sullivan is in line to earn £44,000 for hitting the maximum, which he revealed had a part to play in his motivation to see the frame out in style.
"I was pumped up and the adrenaline was flowing," he told BBC Sport. "The motivation to get them is not as high as it used to be, but it's still nice to get them and obviously I knew somewhere in the back of my mind that the roll-over was kind of mounting up.
"So I thought it was worth getting the maximum because, unless it's over 40 grand, you won't be getting a max out of me mate! You're not getting them cheap. I was shaking like a leaf out there. The blue just about went in and I was shaking on the pink but I hit it well.
"I celebrated before the black because I thought I can't really miss that, but then I remembered Ken Doherty missing one. I didn't want to make myself look stupid."
Yesterday's 147 was the 109th in snooker history, putting O'Sullivan two head of Stephen Hendry in the all-time list.
Daniel Lewis
