Ronnie O’Sullivan has called his withdrawal from this year’s Masters event “a nightmare decision”, adding that he “lost the plot” and broke his cue in half before dropping out of last week’s Championship League.
Speaking in his role as a pundit on Eurosport, O’Sullivan said: “It was a nightmare decision, really, to make. If you’d asked me Sunday if I was ready to play, I probably would have been OK to play, but it’s such a massive tournament.”
O’Sullivan withdrew from his Masters title defence on Friday on medical grounds, after struggling at Thursday’s Championship League event in Leicester. The current world No 3 lost three of his first four matches before pulling out of his final group game, amid reports he had thrown his cue in the bin.
“I’ve been on this three-week trip away playing, and I think I just exhausted myself,” the eight-times Masters champion added. “A lot of pressure, the buildup of all that got a bit too much. I lost the plot on Thursday, snapped my cue so that’s unplayable.”
Along with a number of other elite players, O’Sullivan has recently featured in lucrative exhibition events in the Far East. He also appeared at the Riyadh Season Snooker Championship in Saudi Arabia last month, losing to Mark Allen in the semi-finals.
“I just knew at that moment in time, the right decision was to not play, and in such a big tournament, I thought whoever was going to come in should at least have a couple of days’ notice,” O’Sullivan concluded.
Neil Robertson, who replaced O’Sullivan in the draw, won his first-round match against John Higgins 6-5 having fallen 5-1 behind. The Australian will now face Shaun Murphy in the quarter-finals.
In Monday’s afternoon match, Ding Junhui rode his luck to win the last two frames and edge past Mark Williams 6-5 at Alexandra Palace.
Ding, who won the tournament in 2011, was fortunate to survive some missed chances towards the end of the match before coolly-taken breaks of 76 and 90 saw him home.
“At 5-4 down, I missed a long red and the balls went everywhere, and I thought maybe today is done,” Ding said afterwards. “Then I saw a bit of luck [because] Mark didn’t have an easy one. It was the same in the last frame. My concentration and confidence was good after the interval.”
Williams, a two-times winner of the tournament, missed a chance to take an early lead when he miscued in a promising position in the third frame, but took the next two to nudge 3-2 in front. Two breaks of 60 turned the tie in Ding’s favour before Williams produced a superb 136 clearance in the eighth frame to haul himself level.
The Welshman pinched the ninth to move one frame from victory, but when Ding was not punished for missing two difficult reds, it proved to be enough to send the Chinese player into a last-eight clash with either Judd Trump or Barry Hawkins.
Williams, who turns 50 in two months, bemoaned his ill fortune, saying: “Ding had a hell of a run of the ball, especially in the last two frames when he could have left me in. I lost count of the number of times he held his hand up to say sorry. Those are the fine margins, [but] I’ve had plenty of run in my time, that’s the game.”
In the Monday night match, Mark Selby outclassed Ali Carter, winning 6-1 to set up a quarter-final against either Allen or China’s Si Jiahui. That match takes place on Tuesday evening after Trump and Hawkins meet in the afternoon session.
