Taking to Instagram, O’Sullivan’s story showed him practising overnight before sampling the local culture and heading to a spa. The trip seems to have relaxed the snooker legend, who reacted to the word 'stress' with laughing emojis. Smiling while smoking a cigarette, he then fired a message to his rivals: “I eat stress for breakfast. Come on you lightweights… you big dossers”

O’Sullivan, who has won 23 Triple Crown titles in his career, is scheduled to take on China’s Wang Yuchen in a qualifying match on Monday. In April, O’Sullivan admitted he hadn’t relished playing snooker so far this year and set himself until the next World Championship to change his mindset.

"I'm in that situation at the moment where I've just got to get myself in a frame of mind for maybe the next however long,” O’Sullivan said. “I've given myself a year to the end of next year's World Championship to work with Steve (Peters - psychologist) and hope, you know, to get back to where I feel it's acceptable.

"The task I'm gonna have to set myself is if I can't get my game in the right place, and I really don't wanna stop then I've got to get round my head round acceptance. Learn to live with it, play it."

He added: "But if I can't, then maybe do 18 months, two years, exhibitions, go see all the fans and really just go down that testimonial route and then hang my cue up. Would be, like 51, 52. No big deal."

O’Sullivan will hope the inaugural Xi’an Grand Prix can spark a return to form, with the winner earning £177k in prize money. However, even if he does leave snooker in the near future, the 48-year-old may choose to pursue another form of sporting glory.

“Any cue sport fascinates me, so I’m looking at how popular Chinese 8-Ball is in China now,” O’Sullivan admitted last month. “It’s huge, it’s massive.

“Obviously I want to finish my snooker first, but I’ve got one eye on maybe, when my snooker finishes, I don’t know when, three, four, five, six years, I don’t know when that will be…but definitely when I finish snooker it’ll be something I want to go into and play some pool.

“Maybe give it a go and see if I can win the World Championships and be the best pool player in the world. That would be a challenge for me.”