Ronnie O'Sullivan has converted to Islam in an attempt to find the inner peace that has eluded him since his father began his life sentence for murder in 1991.
The 27-year-old 2001 world champion, brought up as a Roman Catholic, made his act of conversion at the Islamic Cultural Centre in Regent's Park, London, last month.
His mother, Maria, who was herself briefly jailed for VAT offences in connection with the family pornography business in 1995, confirmed that Prince Naseem Hamed, the former world featherweight boxing champion, had been influential in his conversion. The Sheffield boxer had introduced him to an American, Khalid Yassin, a high-profile Muslim preacher who is involved with others in trying to set up an Islamic satellite television station in Britain.
"Ronnie is a lot better in himself since he converted. I hope it will steady him," said Mrs O'Sullivan.
Hamed's influence on O'Sullivan was first apparent at the 2002 Embassy World Championship when he adopted some of the boxer's habitual pre-fight bombast by making a wholly unjustified attack on Stephen Hendry's integrity before their semi-final. He also attacked Ian Doyle, his former manager, who still manages Hendry and the current world champion Mark Williams.
Hendry won that semi-final and a few months later O'Sullivan admitted: "I spent two hours with Nas at his gym and the boxing talk got in my head. What I said about Stephen and Ian wasn't me. It was like somebody else talking. The worst thing now is that Stephen won't talk to me."
It was an episode which showed the all too easily suggestible O'Sullivan at his most naive. As a boy prodigy, O'Sullivan did not seem to have a care in the world but his enforced separation from his idolised father engendered bouts of depression from which various forms of self-indulgence provided only fleeting relief.
He spoke longingly of retirement only to acknowledge how much he would miss the thrill of competition but derived some initial benefit from psychotherapy with Mike Brearley, the former England cricket captain, before discontinuing their association in his impatience for quicker results.
Emerging from a four-week stay in the Priory Hospital, Roehampton, he immediately won two tournaments in his best style but his form has remained cyclical.
Depressed on the eve of the 2001 world championship he turned to Prozac which, he admitted, alleviated his anxieties and promoted the ideal state of mind which helped him take the title.
Early this year, O'Sullivan won two tournaments back to back but lost his opening match at the Crucible to Marco Fu and declined invitations to play in lucrative events in Hong Kong and Bangkok last month. His first appearance of the season will therefore be in the LG Cup, which starts at Preston next Saturday.
"When Ronnie's on song, everybody else looks like a cart horse," says Steve Davis. For O'Sullivan, snooker is an easy game; unfortunately, for him, life is not.