World Snooker today announced on their website that world number three Ronnie O’Sullivan will not be returning to Shanghai to defend the title that he won twelve months ago due to a problem with his back. Shortly afterwards however, the story was apparently taken down…
Long term fans of snooker will not be overly surprised to hear this news, Ronnie has never been a fan of the overseas events and his non-attendance at the most recent Players Tour Championship event in Furth did not bode well either.
How much of a concern his back really is to him at the moment I am in no position to pass judgement upon but the fact that he was able to make a 147 against Jimmy White in an exhibition on Monday night and is also in action tonight in the Premier League will I suspect raise a few eyebrows on the various snooker forums on the internet.
As mentioned above however, the story has in any case now been removed from the World Snooker website leaving the situation rather unclear! Time will tell as to whether the story is incorrect (which would make no sense whatsoever), or merely released sooner than anticipated as I suspect is more likely.
If O’Sullivan is to be missing from the Shanghai draw then it would have an intriguing knock-on effect on the draw with the winner of the wildcard match between Jamie Burnett and Tian Pengfei put straight through to a last 16 tie with either Ryan Day or possibly Andrew Higginson. Having already dispatched Ryan with ease during the recent BTV Cup final, it would be interesting to see if Tian could repeat this on the ranking event stage should that match-up come to fruition…