Ronnie O’Sullivan has pulled out of the Masters on medical grounds for the second year in a row.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Sullivan claimed a record-extending eighth win at the tournament in 2024 but opted against defending his crown 12 months ago, giving the same reason as he has for his latest withdrawal.<\/p>\n
The current world number eight was due to get his campaign under way against Australia\u2019s Neil Robertson on Wednesday, but World Snooker announced Chris Wakelin will instead take the Englishman\u2019s place.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Sullivan, who turned 50 last month, has issued contradictory statements about whether he would play at Alexandra Palace, telling talkSPORT in September: “I probably won\u2019t play the Masters this year.”<\/p>\n
However, O\u2019Sullivan later told The Sun in November he would play “if I can”, explaining his move to Dubai last summer meant he would have to pick and choose what tournaments to prioritise.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Sullivan was last in action before Christmas at the UK Championship, where he has won a record eight titles although on this occasion he was eliminated in the first round after losing to Zhou Yuelong.<\/p>\n
World Snooker said in a statement: “Ronnie O\u2019Sullivan has withdrawn from the Johnstone\u2019s Paint Masters for medical reasons.<\/p>\n
“O\u2019Sullivan was due to face Neil Robertson in the opening round on Wednesday January 14th at 7pm. He has been replaced in the draw by Chris Wakelin who was 17th seed at the cut-off point.<\/p>\n
“The tournament at Alexandra Palace in London run from January 11-18.”<\/p>\n
The exact nature of the medical condition has not been disclosed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ronnie O’Sullivan has pulled out of the Masters on medical grounds for the second year in a row.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":237048,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":{"0":"post-237047","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-ireland","10":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=237047"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237047\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/237048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=237047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=237047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=237047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}