Ronnie O'Sullivan's TV job rejection, Middle East move, fresh retirement stance

There are fresh question marks over the future of following his dramatic appearance at the Right up until a few days before the tournament, it was unclear whether the seven-time Crucible champion would show up in Sheffield, having not played competitively since snapping his cue anger at the low-key Championship League in January.

To the relief of fans, O'Sullivan did play. However, despite reaching the semi-finals, the 49-year-old cut a frustrated figure for the most part, complaining of both cue and confidence issues. He even took the drastic move of having his during his comprehensive last-four defeat to eventual champion Having returned to action, snooker fans are awaiting what he will do next with bated breath. Here's the current state of play in the world of Ronnie O'Sullivan...

TV job rejection

The Rocket has been regular in the Eurosport/TNT Sports studio in recent times. He has performed punditry duties at tournaments he has both played in and pulled out of, including at which came right after the cue-snapping incident.

However, O'Sullivan didn't hang around following his Crucible exit to Zhao, declining the opportunity to cover the final. When asked by a TNT Sports interviewer if he would be analysing the rest of the tournament, he replied: "I won't be there for the rest of this tournament. I'll be going home now."

However, as he clearly has a strong relationship with TNT, where his great mate Jimmy White is a regular pundit, expect to see O'Sullivan in the studio for years to come. That is both before and after retirement, whenever that comes.

Fresh retirement stance

O'Sullivan has teased retirement for years, yet his love-hate relationship with the sport keeps him coming back for more, even if it is intermittently at present. After his World Championship exit, he was naturally quizzed on his future.

As is often the case with O'Sullivan, he was non-committal. However, to the relief of his legion of fans, he intends to keep playing the game, even if his tournament appearances will be sporadic. He said: "I'll still try and play snooker but I don't know what the future looks like for me really."

However, if O'Sullivan's appearances continue to be rare, he will eventually drop out of the top 16, meaning he would have to qualify for the UK Championship and the World Championship and would miss the Masters. It is highly questionable whether O'Sullivan would have the motivation to go through qualifying for major events.

That said, he has regularly stated that he is motivated by the desire to enjoy his snooker rather than pure results. Speaking ahead of the World Championship, he said: "I don't have to win tournaments, but I just want to feel like I'm enjoying the game. I'd like to go out with a smile on my face."

Middle East move

One thing we do know about O'Sullivan's plans is that he'll be spending far where he has a snooker academy in his name in Saudi Arabia. Following his defeat to Zhao, he confirmed: "I think I'm going to be moving out of the UK this year. A new life somewhere else.

"I'm moving away soon so I'll just see how it goes. There's a lot of more important things in life to worry about than a game of snooker. For me, it's a big part of my life but I've got to try and figure out what my future looks like, whether it's playing or not. I'll be moving away to the Middle East but we'll see how it goes. I might be back in six months, who knows?"

O'Sullivan, who recently split from long-term partner Laila Rouass, added: "There are going to be a few changes in my life so we'll see how that goes."

New tournament offer

O'Sullivan could find himself back at the Crucible next year, but in a completely different tournament. Following the termination of the agreement between the World Snooker Tour (WST) and World Seniors Snooker (WSS), any WST player over the age of 45 can now play in WSS events, provided they don't clash with WST tournaments.

As the World Seniors Championship follows the main event in Sheffield, O'Sullivan, and could conceivably play in both. And who is in charge of WSS? None other than O'Sullivan's long-time manager, Jason Francis, who would no doubt love to add some extra star power to the tournament.