Ronnie O’Sullivan has given an update on his World Snooker Championship participation this year, although has only revealed that he is yet to make a decision.
The seven-time world champion has not played competitively since the Championship League in January, where he was so frustrated with his game that he smashed his cue.
The 49-year-old then pulled out of the Masters and has not been seen since, pulling out of a string of events.
There has been much speculation over whether he will return at the Crucible or not and it appears that the Rocket himself is yet to decide.
‘I don’t know yet,’ O’Sullivan told TNT Sports. ‘I haven’t made my mind up, I’ll probably make a decision on maybe the 17th or 18th of April.
‘I don’t know when I’m due to play my first match, so I’m going to try and leave myself as much time as possible.
‘I’d love to be able to go there and play, I’d love to be able to have the confidence to be able to get my cue out and go and play snooker.
‘I just need to give myself as much time as possible to see where I’m at with it, and see whether it’s something I’m going to be able to do.’
April 17 or 18 would be late in the day for O’Sullivan to decide as the Crucible stages begin on April 19.
With qualification finishing on April 16, if the Rocket did pull out on the eve of the Crucible, it would mean that a qualifier who is drawn to play him would receive a bye to the second round.
O’Sullivan explained why he has decided to step back from snooker in recent months, saying his break has been a long time coming as frustrations built up.
‘It’s been a real struggle. I’ve tried to play my way through,’ he said. ‘I’ve had moments and glimpses where I thought, OK, this is OK. But on the whole, probably three and a half years out of the last four have been pretty terrible for me, and that’s kind of took its toll.
‘I kind of got a bit tired. It kind of ground me down to the point where I kind of lost the love for the game, and that’s why in January I snapped my cue just in temper, in frustration. I don’t really want to feel like that, you know, so I’ve taken time out.
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‘I’m just gonna try and fix what I think is the problem before I come back to play serious snooker again.’
O’Sullivan has played a number of tournaments this season and reached semi-finals at the Xi’an Grand Prix, Shanghai Masters and Riyadh Season Snooker Championship.
Despite pulling out of multiple events he had still done enough to qualify for the recent World Grand Prix, which featured the top 32 on the one-year ranking list.
However, he chose not to compete in Hong Kong and the wait goes on to see whether he will be in Sheffield.
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