Ronnie O’Sullivan will not be involved at the Scottish Open (Picture: PA)

Ronnie O’Sullivan will not be playing at this week’s Scottish Open after a late withdrawal ‘due to medical reasons’ from the event in Edinburgh.

The Rocket has withdrawn from a number of UK events this season, regularly citing an ongoing problem with tennis elbow, while he also pulled out of the Champion of Champions due to a busy travel schedule impacting his mental health.

The 48-year-old won the UK Championship for an eight time earlier this month in York, but has otherwise played in just one tournament on home soil this campaign, losing in the third round of the English Open in Brentwood.

O’Sullivan did hint that he was likely to skip the trip to Scotland during his run to the UK Championship title, saying: ‘I’m looking forward to a break. I think I have to monitor my schedule a lot, and I just think prevention is better than cure and I don’t want to get to the point where I hit a bad spot.

‘So, I think for me, it’ll be try to enjoy this tournament, then probably miss Scotland and then go to Macau for Christmas for a big event. I’m looking forward to that. I want to be ready for that, it’s an important event.’

His next action on the World Snooker Tour will now almost certainly be the Masters at Alexandra Palace in January, where he takes on Ding Junhui in the opening round.

Before that, he is playing an exhibition event in Macau over Christmas, running from 25-29 December and featuring Judd Trump, Jack Lisowski, Marco Fu, Si Jiahui, Ding Junhui, Mark Williams and Kyren Wilson.

O’Sullivan is not the only top player opting out of playing in Scotland, with Neil Robertson not playing this year as he has returned to Australia for a short break from the game, also set to return for the Masters next month.

There are plenty of other big names involved, though, with the likes of Judd Trump, Mark Selby, John Higgins, Luca Brecel, Mark Williams, Ding Junhui and Shaun Murphy all getting their campaigns underway on Monday.

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