Featured Image Credit: Stephen Hendry's Cue Tips / YouTube
Topics: Snooker, Ronnie OSullivan
Chris Nee
Topics: Snooker, Ronnie OSullivan
Former snooker professional Stephen Lee made a low-key return to the sport in August after serving a 12-year ban.
Lee's ban was the longest issued by the snooker authorities when it was handed down in 2012 and ruled him out of all officially sanctioned events until his 50th birthday.
He played a six-red exhibition against James Wattana in Thailand last month, his first match action on the baize since he was found guilty of match-fixing offences.
The 2003 World Snooker Championship semi-finalist has been in trouble with the law on a couple of occasions since his professional career ended, first for fraudulently selling his cue to a fan and then for teaching snooker in Hong Kong without a work permit.
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While he is no longer banned, Lee remains ineligible to play sanctioned snooker; one of the conditions of his return to the sport proper is the payment of legal costs as ordered by the World Pool, Billiards & Snooker Association (WPBSA).
The WPBSA said in August that those costs had not yet been paid.
Four-time world champion John Higgins indicated that he would welcome Lee back into the fold and Ronnie O'Sullivan thinks a comeback could be achievable for a capable player.
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"Yeah, I think he could compete," O'Sullivan told SPORTbible. "He's a great cueist. How far he'd get up the rankings, I just don't know. But yeah, I think he's fresh, put it that way."
Mark Allen, who knocked in a 147 maximum break at the Crucible in this year's World Snooker Championship, holds Lee in similar regard.
Opening his X account up to an impromptu Q&A after his cue wasn't stowed on his flight from Belfast on Wednesday, Allen was asked about the banned 50-year-old.
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"Was Stephen Lee's cue action as good as everyone says it was," asked one poster of the Pistol.
"It was VERY good yes," confirmed the 20-year professional from Northern Ireland.
Lee was found guilty of influencing the outcome of seven matches played in 2008 and 2009.
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It was ruled that he was working with three different groups when he deliberately lost matches against Ryan Day, Ken Doherty and Marco Fu, and threw the first frames against Stephen Hendry and Mark King.
He was also found to have lost by predetermined scorelines to Neil Robertson and Mark Selby.