Ronnie O’Sullivan left Ally McCoist in disbelief as the snooker legend denied ever gaining a mental edge over his old rival Stephen Hendry. The pair are considered two of the greatest-ever snooker players, given they hold the joint record for most World Snooker Championship titles, with seven victories apiece. However, 49-year-old O’Sullivan is yet to confirm whether he will be competing at the Crucible this month after withdrawing from various tournaments already this year. In an interview with Scotland football icon McCoist , ‘The Rocket’ reflected on the impact his old rival Hendry had on the sport. While explaining that Hendry’s approach forced his opponents to make mistakes, O’Sullivan rejected the suggestion that he had the same effect on the Scotsman’s game at any point in his career. “No, I don’t think so. I don’t think I’ve ever been the most confident,” O’Sullivan admitted to TNT Sports . “I know I’ve got ability and I know that if I play good when I’m out there, I feel confident, but in the build-up, I have a lot of self-doubt. At no point did I think ‘I’ve got this, I’m the man to beat’. I never, ever thought that.” The candid answer surprised McCoist, who replied: “That’s amazing. Honest to god, Ronnie, I would never have thought somebody like yourself on the snooker table would have any self-doubt.” Reflecting on how his mindset had changed over the years, O’Sullivan explained: “I used to. As a kid, I was very confident and had a lot of self-belief in my technique. It was so rock-solid that I used to wake up and think, ‘I’m going to be nine out of 10 today’. Then as I got later into my career, I got a lot of bad habits. “Snooker is a very technical game, a little bit like golf, and it was really hard to get it right. So from 17 to now, I’ve always been plagued by inconsistencies through my technique not being as good as it used to be as a kid. I’ve kind of had to find ways to just keep going.” Despite O’Sullivan’s honest self-assessment of his career, many fans would have a different perspective. The 49-year-old has won a record 42 ranking titles, including 23 Triple Crown victories. However, O’Sullivan claimed that he felt most confident and happiest around a snooker table before turning professional. This admission similarly took McCoist by surprise, with O’Sullivan likening his outlook to an anecdote of Formula One legend Ayrton Senna’s fondest sporting memories being childhood go-kart races. “The part where I felt invincible would have been from the age of 12 to about 16,” he confessed. “ I won a hell of a lot of amateur events, a hell of a lot of junior events. I was just relentless. I was like a machine. I just felt so confident.” O’Sullivan may have a different view of his own success than others, but he was glowing in his praise of Hendry. The Scotsman won his first world title in 1990 and seemingly changed how a young O’Sullivan viewed the sport. “My first hero was Steve Davis, I modelled my game on him when I was a kid, just watching him on TV,” O’Sullivan said. “Then Stephen Hendry came along and he just blew it all apart. A bit like Tiger Woods and Usain Bolt did. He just played a different game and we all had to follow his way of playing if you wanted to become a winner and a champion. “Hendry was just fearless. He didn’t have any safety game, he didn’t need it. He was that good. Hendry’s mindset was, if it’s the first to 10, ‘I’m going to make 10 80 breaks, so it doesn’t matter what you do’. “He had that confidence in himself just to clear the table. Then that puts a lot of fear into the opponent and you start getting easy chances left because your opponent’s under. Hendry came along with that type of game, whereas Davis would make a 50 or 40 and play safe and that was enough at that time. But when Hendry came along, it wasn’t enough.”