At the 2008 World Championships, O'Sullivan compiled a record-breaking ninth competitive maximum break against Mark Williams. It was his third of the season, and also his third maximum at the Crucible. It was the fourth maximum to be compiled in a winning frame of a match (following those of Hendry, Williams, and O'Sullivan himself). Interviewed by Steve Davis just after beating Williams 13–7, he said "I can finally buy a Bentley Continental GT". Soon after O'Sullivan potted the final black, commentator Dennis Taylor called him a "total genius". However, O'Sullivan's 147 was equalled by Ali Carter in the same tournament, thus halving the prize money. O'Sullivan defeated Liu Chuang, Mark Williams, Liang Wenbo and Stephen Hendry "en route" to the final of the tournament. After the match, Hendry described O'Sullivan as "the best in the world by a country mile". He then beat Carter 18–8 to win the title on 5 May. In an interview after his third world title win, he hinted again that he might not play in the 2008/2009 season, but also stated that he might go on to pursue many more world titles. At the end of the season O'Sullivan left management company 110sport, to join the Romford-based Grove Leisure. In late 2020 in an interview show with Eurosport titled The Joy of Six where he is asked about each triumph on the biggest stage, he confessed his obnoxious antics in China not long before the World Championships was to give him a big incentive to focus on winning the tournament, a make or break moment for his career as he feared courting a bad reputation the way he did could lead to him being banned by organisers, threatening his very existence as a player so he was playing for survival so to speak, the ploy ended up paying extreme dividends with perhaps his most focused and best world championship run of his career.