Luca Brecel has withdrawn from the Saudi Arabia Snooker Masters in Jeddah, it was announced by the World Snooker Tour on Saturday.
WST cited medical reasons as the cause, but it already marks the fourth tournament of the 2025/26 campaign that Brecel has pulled out of.
The Belgian Bullet ended last season by losing the 2023 World Championship title-winning £500,000 from his rolling two-year ranking tally.
That sent him plummeting outside the top 16 on the official rankings list, with the 30 year-old finishing the term as the world number 39.
Even so, that had been a considerable improvement from months earlier when dismal form had led to the barely believable possibility of losing tour survival.
Indeed, Brecel actually concluded the 2024/25 season in promising fashion by reaching the semi-finals of the Welsh Open and the quarter-finals at the World Championship.
Fans had hoped that those performances would help inspire him to take the game more seriously this season in an effort to rebuild his career.
But the former world number two has failed to present himself at any event since the new calendar commenced in June.
Brecel skipped the Wuhan Open qualifiers – handing a bye through to the venue stages in China to Haris Tahir – and was replaced by Ashley Carty as he subsequently pulled out of the British Open qualifiers.
Shortly after, he withdrew from Group 27 of Championship League Snooker, the ranking event that he had emerged triumphantly from back in 2022.
His absence from the main tour has now continued into this week’s megarich Saudi Arabia Snooker Masters.
The four-time ranking event winner later took to social media platform Instagram to provide some more details surrounding his decision.
“Hi everyone,” Luca Brecel wrote on an Instagram story. “Some of you might have been wondering why I am not participating in snooker events since April.”
“The truth is that I am suffering with health problems. Me an my team are doing everything we can to come out of this stronger and better than before.
“It’s been really frustrating to not be able to travel and compete in tournaments. But I always choose to be optimistic.
“Tough times often lead to something great.”
Sanderson Lam is the immediate beneficiary, with the Panda moving forward to the fourth round and within one win of booking a last-32 meeting with Ronnie O’Sullivan.
O’Sullivan boasts odds of 6/1 in the outright betting market behind favourites Judd Trump, Zhao Xintong, and Kyren Wilson.
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Elsewhere on day two at what is dubbed the sport’s fourth major, Reanne Evans produced a strong finish to win her second match of the week.
After years of struggling on the World Snooker Tour, the 12-time women’s world champion has been in super form so far this season.
Evans won both of her qualifying fixtures for the Wuhan and British Open, and she has now won back-to-back matches at the Green Halls to guarantee herself at least £7,000 in prize money.
In round two, the Englishwoman completed her 4-2 triumph over Liam Davies with a break of 84, setting up an intriguing upcoming clash against Jack Lisowski.
Another interesting result saw young Polish star Michal Szubarczyk edge Bulcsu Revesz in a battle of the teenagers.
Szubarczyk, just 14 years old, pipped 18 year-old Revesz in a deciding frame and will face former world champion Stuart Bingham in the next round.
Among some of the other names to make through to round three were Matthew Stevens, Anthony McGill, Stan Moody, and Sam Craigie.
Ken Doherty missed out, though, after suffering a narrow 4-3 defeat to up-and-coming Latvian talent Artemijs Zizins.
Antoni Kowalski and Lan Yuhao were a couple of the other young prospects to continue their runs in the tournament.
The third round will take place on Sunday with the contenders who are seeded from 17 to 48 entering the fray in the draw.
That includes many heavy hitters like Lisoswki, Bingham, Gary Wilson, Ryan Day, Wu Yize, Joe O’Connor, and recent Championship League Snooker winner Stephen Maguire.
Click here to view the updated draw (snooker.org)
Featured photo credit: WST
Sanderson Lam is NOT ‘The Panda’. Zhang Anda is.