Ronnie O’Sullivan. Picture by Monique Limbos

FIVE times world champion Ronnie O’Sullivan has said his batteries are recharged for the new season with his snooker comeback just weeks away.

O’Sullivan will play his first competitive match since losing the World Championship final to Mark Selby in May when he plays in the Paul Hunter Classic PTC event laster this month.

The minor ranking event, starting on August 22, will be the second European Tour event of the season and will be held in Furth in Germany – following this weekend’s first event in Latvia.

Earlier this summer, O’Sullivan announced he would be playing in the Shanghai Masters in September – which will be his first appearance at a major ranking event since suffering Crucible final heartbreak three months ago.

And O’Sullivan, speaking in his latest Eurosport blog, said he was hugely looking forward to returning to the sport after a nice break away.

“Since losing to Mark in the final of the World Championship back in May, I’ve had time to get away, relax, recharge the batteries so to speak and now I’m relishing getting back to playing the game I love,” he said.

“I like Shanghai a lot. I love the city, the people and the venue. It is an exciting place to visit and play snooker so I thought it would be a good idea to play there this season.

“I can use the PTC in Germany as my first tournament of the season before Shanghai which is another enjoyable event. They always have appreciative crowds in Germany – I’m looking forward to getting out there.”

The blog also revealed O’Sullivan’s desire to tackle an anxiety of flying so he can play more overseas events throughout the season.

I’m not a great flyer of course,” he added. “I’m not the only person who isn’t a fan of flying, but since the incident in the car after the world final when I spun off the road with young Ronnie with me, I’ve come to realise that flying is no less or more dangerous than driving. I just need to get to grips with it and be sensible and logical about it.

“I’m trying to embrace the journeys more that require me to fly especially with so much of the snooker calendar now being played overseas.”

Visit https://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/snooker to see O’Sullivan’s blog in full.