Jordan is widely considered as the greatest NBA player in history, having won six NBA Championships with the Chicago Bulls.
He was named as the NBA Finals MVP on six occasions, and was a four-time gold medallist at the Olympic Games.
On an individual scale, Jordan was named in the NBA All-Star Team on 14 occasions – a number yet to be matched by any other professional basketball player.
O’Sullivan, meanwhile, is viewed by many as the greatest snooker player to have ever played the sport. He has won seven World Championships – the joint-most in history alongside Stephen Hendry.
His other pick was none other than tennis legend Novak Djokovic, who has won a record 24 men’s Grand Slam singles titles.
Only Roger Federer has won more Wimbledon titles than the Serb’s seven in the Open Era, although no male player has matched Djokovic’s 11 singles titles at the Australian Open.
The 37-year-old recovered from knee surgery in under three weeks to compete at this year’s Wimbledon, where he was beaten in straight sets by Carlos Alcaraz in the final.
Speaking to WST, O’Sullivan said of Djokovic and Jordan: “He has to be up there with Michael Jordan as the greatest sportsperson that there’s ever been in any sport, not just tennis.
“I think every sportsperson looks at people like Djokovic and Michael Jordan and goes, ‘OK, what can I learn from them?’
“Obviously, watching his [Djokovic’s] career, and then meeting him and going to watch him, we’ve had a few WhatsApp messages and stuff like that. Yeah, it’s great.”
The meeting that O’Sullivan is referencing was at Wimbledon, with ‘The Rocket’ visiting SW19 to watch Djokovic win his first round match against Vit Kopriva.
After that match had concluded, Djokovic said of his sporting contemporary: “I’m his fan. I watch snooker just because of him. I watched when I was a kid … I only watched Ronnie. Whenever he would not play, I would not watch.
“We just had a meet-up, an interaction for the first time. It was great. It was really nice to have him around.
“Hopefully we’re able to play some snooker, because I’m really bad at snooker. I’m okay at pool .
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