Ronnie O’Sullivan let his frustrations get the better of him last week as he smashed his cue and left it in a bin at the Championship League before withdrawing from The Masters
Ronnie O’Sullivan was told he couldn’t leave his smashed cue in a bin after his furious outburst at the Championship League.
The Rocket admits he “lost the plot” during his 3-2 defeat to Robert Milkins last Thursday, which was his fourth loss in five matches. He saw red after fluffing a simple pot and quickly apologised to the referee for hitting his cue on the table.
O’Sullivan’s recent string of losses prompted him to throw his cue into a bin in the players’ lounge – only for it to be reportedly rescued by his manager.
The next morning, the seven-time world champion followed up his withdrawal from the Championship League by revealing he would be pulling out of The Masters, too, on “medical grounds”. He was set to go head-to-head with snooker legend John Higgins but Neil Robertson stepped in as his replacement.
Breaking his silence on Monday, O’Sullivan told Eurosport: “It [the cue] was in the bin, one of them wheelie bins, and then my mate said, ‘look, you can’t leave that there’, so he got it out and brought it with us.
“But I’ve got a couple of other cues that I’ve got to start practising with, because obviously there are some tournaments coming up, so I’m going to continue to play. So I need to get used to the cue now.”
The Essex potter also opened up about his decision to back out of the triple crown, saying: “It was a tough decision to withdraw. It was a nightmare decision really to make. If you had asked me on Sunday ‘was I ready to play?’ I would have probably been okay to play.
“It’s such a massive tournament and I have been on this three-week trip away. I think I just exhausted myself. A lot of pressure while I was away. The build-up of all that, it just got a bit too much really.
“I mean I lost the plot on Thursday. Snapped my cue. So that is unplayable. I just knew at that moment in time, the right decision was not to play.”
O’Sullivan has been off his game this season and now ranks 18th on the one-year list. Barry Hawkins defeated him in the first round of the UK Championship before losing to Mark Allen in the semi-finals of the Riyadh Season Snooker Championship.
He previously skipped the German Masters for the sake of his “health and well-being” and dropped out of the Welsh Open, citing anxiety issues. The Rocket likewise withdrew from last month’s Scottish Open one day before he was due to play.
