Ronnie O'Sullivan withdraws from World Grand Prix and can not play again until World Championship at Crucible

The World Snooker Tour released the news on their website on Saturday afternoon. O'Sullivan will be replaced in the 32-player draw by Hossein Vafaei who was the highest ranked player who initially failed to qualify for the big-money Players Series event at the new Kai Tak Stadium.

With O'Sullivan withdrawing from the ranking tournament, it means he can no longer qualify for either the Players Championship or Tour Championship competitions in the coming weeks, and therefore the next event he is eligible to play in is the World Championship at the Crucible Theatre in late April.

This is the latest in a string of withdrawals this season for O'Sullivan. The 49-year-old has not been in action since the behind-closed-doors Championship League Invitational in Leicester at the start of the year, where he deliberately broke his cue and pulled out of the event despite still having one more league match to play.

Subsequently, O'Sullivan stepped away from defending his title at the Masters at the Alexandra Palace in London, and has since pulled out of the German Masters, Welsh Open and World Open.

Only a few days ago, O'Sullivan - who is a Hong Kong resident as part of the region's Quality Migrant Admission Scheme - sent a video message to the World Grand Prix tournament promoters saying: “I have just been having a little break, to keep myself fresh. I am excited to see you all.”

O’Sullivan did play in several tournaments in the first half of the ongoing 2024/25 season, although did not reach an event final. In comparison, last season, he won five events.

Despite being currently ranked 24th (at the time of writing) on the one-year seasonal list - meaning he can’t make it to either the Players (top 16) or Tour (top 12) Championship - O’Sullivan is comfortably inside the world’s top 16 on the official two-year list.

This means he would be a seed player for the 2025 World Championship at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, should he choose to enter and play in snooker’s blue riband event. The main venue stages start at the Crucible on April 19th.