Ronnie O’Sullivan is facing the rare prospect of missing out on a place in the Champion of Champions tournament, despite having won the prestigious event four times in the past. The competition, which boasts a total prize fund of £440,000 and awards the winner a hefty £150,000, is scheduled to begin on November 10 at the Mattioli Arena in Leicester.
The Champion of Champions, founded in 2013, is an exclusive invitational event that pits the title winners from the previous year’s major tournaments against each other to form a 16-man field.
The core reason for the 49-year-old Rocket’s likely exclusion is his lack of recent silverware. O’Sullivan’s last tournament victory was the World Masters of Snooker in Saudi Arabia in March 2024. Since then, he has not lifted a single piece of silverware that would automatically qualify him for the 2025 event.
O’Sullivan’s previous wins came in 2013, 2014, 2018, and 2022, underscoring his stature as one of the tournament’s most successful players. Missing out would make him the biggest name excluded from the invitational lineup.
Typically, if the list of tournament champions is insufficient to fill the 16 available slots, the field is completed by inviting players based on the World Rankings. While O’Sullivan is currently ranked World No. 4, his spot through this route is far from guaranteed.
It is believed that multiple other title winners since the previous Champion of Champions tournament, whose victories are prioritized for the invitations, would be asked before O’Sullivan. Potential names for invitations include:
Mark Allen, who won the Riyadh Season Snooker Championship in December.
Bai Yulu and Alfie Burden, for their respective successes in the Women’s and Seniors World Championships.
The World No. 4 still has a slim chance to secure an automatic spot if he returns to action and wins a qualifying event before the Champion of Champions begins.
His remaining opportunities are:
The British Open (October).
The Northern Ireland Open (October).
The International Championship (scheduled to start November 2).
O’Sullivan recently pulled out of the Wuhan Open for medical reasons, but he has been vocal about his intentions not to retire yet, insisting he will be the first to announce when he puts his cue down for good.