Ronnie O’Sullivan was named World Snooker’s player of the year at the sport’s awards dinner on Thursday night.

Three days after he finished runner-up to Mark Selby at the Dafabet World Championship, after which he suffered a car crash on the way home, the 38-year-old was feted at the Lancaster London Hotel.

Despite his Crucible final defeat to Selby, whose victory in Sheffield was rewarded with the performance of the year award, O’Sullivan had a strong season that saw him win the Masters, Welsh Open and Champion of Champions event.

While O’Sullivan took the top award, the snooker writers’ player of the year was Ding Junhui, who won five ranking tournaments over the campaign to match a record set by Stephen Hendry in 1990/91.

O’Sullivan also took the fans’ player of the year award.

Meanwhile, it was confirmed that Hendry, Steve Davis and James Wattana will receive invitations to play on tour in 2014/15, under the plans outlined by World Snooker chairman two weeks ago.

Hendry is poised to accept and come out of retirement, with fellow veteran players Davis and Wattana both spared falling off the tour after dropping out of the top 64 in the world in the season just ended.

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