Ronnie O’Sullivan withdraws from British Open hours after disappointing Wuhan Open loss

Just hours after his disappointing loss to Chang Bingyu in the semi-finals of the Wuhan Open, the World Snooker Tour published an article on its website stating that O’Sullivan has withdrawn from next week’s £502,000 tournament at The Centaur.

The announcement read: Ronnie O’Sullivan has pulled out of next week’s Unibet British Open for medical reasons.

O’Sullivan was due to play Mateusz Baranowski on Monday August 31. He has been replaced in the draw by Mark Joyce.

The tournament in Cheltenham runs from August 31 to September 6.

It is not a surprise that O’Sullivan has withdrawn from the event; it’s the fourth successive year that he has entered the British Open, but then subsequently pulled out. In 2023 and 2025, it was also announced due to medical reasons.

Since the tournament returned to the professional circuit in 2021, O’Sullivan - whose second ranking event triumph came at the 1994 British Open in Plymouth - has only featured in it once, in 2022 when he lost 4-1 to Alexander Ursenbacher in round one.

It is surprising how late in the day O’Sullivan’s withdrawal from this year’s edition has come, though. At the end of July, he pulled out of the English Open (September 7-13) which immediately follows the British Open, and it seemed highly unlikely that he was going to play in only one of the competitions given his current living arrangements in Dubai.

Seven-times World Champion O’Sullivan played just twice on UK soil last season; at the 2025 UK Championship where he lost to qualifier Zhou Yuleong in the first round in York, and at the 2026 World Championship where he comfortably dispatched qualifier He Guoqiang before being ousted by fellow ‘Class of 92’ member John Higgins, 13-12, in the last 16.

Away from the professional circuit, just days after Wu Yize’s glory there, O’Sullivan returned to the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield to make his debut in the World Seniors Snooker Championship, and went on to win the title. The following weekend in Reading, he also claimed the inaugural Global Snooker 900 Championship.

It looks likely that O’Sullivan’s next engagement on snooker’s top flight will be at the Shenzhen Open towards the end of September. He is scheduled to face Jiang Jun in the round of 64 on Monday 28th September.

The last of O’Sullivan’s record 41 ranking event titles came in January 2024 at the World Grand Prix. For the first time in his career, he went back-to-back seasons without lifting a trophy on the top tier.