"It was nightmare decision to make," he told Eurosport. "If you'd asked me Sunday was I ready to play then I probably would have been ok to play.

"But it's such a massive tournament and I'd obviously been on this three-week trip away playing, and I think I just exhausted myself. There was a lot pf pressure while i was away and the build-up of all that just got a bit too much really."

O'Sullivan spent late December and early January playing in the Far East, and implied the schedule had taken its toll by the time he played Milkins. "So I lost the plot on Thursday, snapped my cue so that's unplayable," he added.

"So yeah, I just knew that at moment in time the right decision was to not play. It's such a big tournament so I thought whoever was going to come in should have at least a couple of days notice."

It was Neil Robertson who replaced O'Sullivan in the draw, and he proceeded to come through a thriller against Higgins. Trailing 5-1, the Australian won five consecutive frames to prevail 6-5.

But it seems fans won't have to wait long for O'Sullivan to return. Despite his broken cue ending up in the bin in Leicester, he now plans to play upcoming events with different ones.

"My mate said we can't leave that here, so he got it out (the bin) and brought it with us," he added. "I've got a couple of other cues that I can start practicing with because there's some tournaments coming up. I'm going to continue to play so I need to get used to the cue now."