Ronnie O’Sullivan breaks silence on Masters withdrawal: ‘It was a nightmare decision’
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Ronnie O’Sullivan described his withdrawal from the Masters as a ‘nightmare decision to make’ and said it was down to a build-up of pressure ahead of the tournament. The Rocket pulled out of the defence of his Masters title on Friday after, with Neil Robertson replacing him in the draw and taking on John Higgins on Sunday.
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The 49-year-old had been playing in the Championship League on Wednesday and Thursday, appearing very frustrated with his game, so much so that he snapped his cue after a defeat to Robert Milkins. After pulling out of the event in Leicester, O’Sullivan then withdrew from the Masters, having ‘lost the plot’ and left his cue in pieces in a bin.
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There was concern for O’Sullivan’s mental health after the withdrawal and asked on Eurosport how he is on Monday evening, he said: ‘I’m alright, not too bad.’. Explaining his choice to pull out of the Masters, he said: ‘It was a nightmare decision really to make, if you’d have asked me Sunday if I was ready to play I’d probably have been ok to play. But it’s such a massive tournament.
‘I’d been on a three-week trip away playing and I just think I exhausted myself, a lot of pressure while I was away. The build-up of all that just got a bit too much really. ‘I lost the plot on Thursday, snapped my cue, so that’s unplayable, so I knew at that moment in time the right decision was to not play and such a big tournament that I thought whoever was to come in should have had at least a couple of days notice.’.
