Ronnie O'Sullivan to end seven-week absence from World Snooker Tour with Xi'an Grand Prix comeback

The seven-time world champion is in the draw for the upcoming Xi’an Grand Prix in China (October 7-13) and is expected to play in the £850,000 world ranking event.

Whilst the majority of round one matches were played as ‘qualifiers’ and completed in England a few weeks ago, O’Sullivan’s opening assignment has been held over to the main venue in the Far East. He will face Ukrainian youngster Iulian Boiko during the evening session on Tuesday (12:30BST).

This event will be O’Sullivan’s third engagement of the 2025/26 season. He began at the Shanghai Masters - a competition he has won a record five times - at the end of July, where he ousted Barry Hawkins 6-5 before bowing out to eventual champion Kyren Wilson 6-3 in the quarter-finals.

A couple of weeks later, the 49-year-old was in the Middle East for the big-money Saudi Arabia Masters where he went on a very memorable run.

After whitewashing Joe O'Connor 5-0 in his first match, O'Sullivan recovered from 5-2 down to deny Chinese youngster Chang Bingyu, 6-5, in the last 16.

O'Sullivan then produced another brilliant recovery in the last eight, rallying from 5-3 down to Wilson with back-to-back century breaks before claiming the decider.

The next day in the semi-finals, O'Sullivan conjured up one of the greatest sessions of snooker, ever. During a 6-3 victory over Chris Wakelin, 'The Rocket' fashioned two maximum 147 breaks, and further efforts of 142, 132, 70, 67 and 50.

The 16th and 17th maximums of his professional career, it was the first time in professional snooker history that a player has made multiple 147s during the same session of a match. The remarkable feat eventually earned O’Sullivan over £180,000 in bonuses.

More drama was to come in the final against Neil Robertson. The Australian built a 7-2 lead before O'Sullivan responded with five frames in-a-row to level up, and then reaching the hill first at 9-8 up. However, he was unable to get over the line for the title; Robertson made a century to force a decider, and then crafted a cool 87 to collect the £500,000 first prize in Jeddah.

O’Sullivan will, of course, have been sore about getting so close to record-extending 42nd career ranking event title, but he was surely pleased with his efforts and performances throughout the competition - especially using a new cue. At the World Championship in the spring, he talked about rebuilding his game and the process it was going to take.

In total, the Englishman made 11 centuries during the Saudi event. He was later named as the WPBSA Players’ Player of the Month for August 2025.

O’Sullivan lays out his playing plans for the season

On top of his 147 jackpots, O’Sullivan pocketed £200,000 for finishing as the runner-up in Saudi. This was a very timely boost to his world ranking, as he has significant amounts of prize money to defend this season.

Currently, he is ranked fourth in the overall world rankings, and second on the one-year list. The latter equation means - with likely more money to be added - it is extremely likely he will qualify for all three of this season’s Players Series events.

Following his Middle East efforts, O’Sullivan withdrew from the recent Wuhan Open and British Open tournaments. He also didn’t enter the English Open - the event in-between those two.

It will be interesting to see in Xi’an if he can continue his momentum; all of his rivals in the event will be warmed up after a busy few weeks on the tour whilst he has been away.

At the start of this calendar year, O’Sullivan deliberately smashed up his cue at the Championship League Invitational. It led to him withdrawing from his title defence at the Masters, and pulling out of a string of tournaments in subsequent months. He did return at the World Championship, though, where, despite not being on top form, he made the semi-finals before losing to eventual title winner Zhao Xintong.

It was only a couple of seasons ago - during the 2023/24 campaign - that O’Sullivan won five titles, including the UK Championship and the Masters. His last triumph on the World Snooker Tour was at the World Masters of Snooker in Saudi in March 2024 - over 18 months ago.

In a recent radio interview, O’Sullivan - who now lives in Dubai with his wife - stated his planned schedule for this season. In terms of UK-based events, he intends to play in the UK Championship, Tour Championship and World Championship, but he also said that he “probably won’t play the Masters”, which takes place at the Alexandra Palace in January.

The Xi’an Grand Prix is O’Sullivan’s first port of call, though, an event he reached the semi-finals of last year.