Ronnie O'Sullivan refused to confirm if he will play at the World Snooker Championship this month and will make a late decision on his participation. The Rocket has not played a competitive match since January, when he snapped his cue at the Championship League, and was not eligible to compete at this week's Tour Championship.

O'Sullivan, the world No. 4, has qualified for the season's Sheffield showpiece but continues to cast doubt on whether he will skip the event. He has played in every edition of the World Championship since first featuring in 1992, making 32 consecutive appearances.

This year, O'Sullivan has pulled out of the Masters, World Grand Prix, Scottish Open, German Masters and Welsh Open. He cited medical reasons for those withdrawals, which often arrived late and left supporters frustrated.

"I don't know yet," the seven-time Crucible winner said when asked if he will play. "I haven't made my mind up, I'll probably make a decision on maybe the 17th or 18th of April. I don't know when I'm due to play my first match, so I'm going to try and leave myself as much time as possible.

"I'd love to be able to go there and play, I'd love to be able to have the confidence to be able to get my cue out and go and play snooker. I just need to give myself as much time as possible to see where I'm at with it, and see whether it's something I'm going to be able to do."

The 49-year-old claimed that recent years "took its toll" on him and the reason for his cue snap in Leicester against Robert Milkins was because he fell out of love with the sport.

"It's been a real struggle," O'Sullivan added. "I've tried to play my way through. I've had moments and glimpses where I thought, OK, this is OK.

"But on the whole, probably three and a half years out of the last four have been pretty terrible for me, and that's kind of took its toll.

"I kind of got a bit tired. It kind of ground, ground me down to the point where I kind of lost the love for the game, and that's why, you know, in January, I snapped my cue just in, in temper, in frustration. I don't really want to feel like that, you know, so I've taken time out.

"I'm just gonna try and fix what I think is the problem before I come back to play serious snooker again."

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