Ronnie O’Sullivan may be denied £790,000 ($1million) before he has stepped up to the table due to the scheduling at the Riyadh Season Snooker Championship. The huge prize is on offer for the first player to score a maximum break of 167.

Last year, the lucrative Saudi tournament added a new ‘golden ball’ worth 20 points. It increases the traditional score of a maximum break of 147 to 167.

The first player to pot the maximum break last year banked around £393k ($500k). That figure has been doubled this year after nobody managed the feat in the competition’s inaugural edition last year.

John Higgins came the closest, potting 15 reds and 15 breaks, but he missed an extremely difficult yellow.

O’Sullivan’s rivals will all have the chance to complete the maximum break before he features in the tournament. The Rocket is scheduled to play his first match last. The likes of Ding Junhui, Luca Brecel, Shaun Murphy, Kyren Wilson, Judd Trump and Mark Selby all play before O’Sullivan.

The 49-year-old’s first match will come on Thursday, against the winner of Murphy’s match against either Ding or local star Abdulraouf Sayegh. It is a possibility that the maximum break will already be scored by the time fans get to see O’Sullivan for the first time.

Sayegh is one of two Saudi wildcards who join the 10 top-ranked snooker players in the non-ranking event. The tournament’s winner will win £250,000. The prize money for potting a maximum break is more than the £500k Wilson cashed in for winning the World Snooker Championship earlier this year.

O’Sullivan has streamlined his schedule towards the end of the year. He withdrew from the Scottish Open one day before he was due to play against Xing Zihao.

The seven-time world champion was beaten by Barry Hawkins in his first match at the UK Championship.

O’Sullivan recently expressed his love for China, telling the World Snooker Tour: “I always tell people you have to come to China. For me, it’s the greatest place on Earth.

“I would just recommend anybody to just come to China. It blows me away. Every city I come to in China … it’s like you’re in another world. It’s the best place in the world. There is no other place like China. Every city just has something amazing about it and Nanjing has a lot of history.”