Former snooker world champion Kyren Wilson has revealed he stopped playing for over a month due to his wife’s health battle. The 33-year-old is currently ranked as the world No. 2, largely due to his victories at last year’s World Championship and this season’s Shanghai Masters.
But Wilson has endured a noticeable dip in form, crashing out of the Saudi Arabia Snooker Masters, the Wuhan Open and the English Open earlier than expected. His performances have been a far cry from the cueist we saw achieve success at the Crucible in 2024. But Wilson has now explained the completely understandable reason behind his form, by opening up about the tough period he and his family are going through, which has meant he has not been practising. Wilson lifted the lid on how his wife of nine years, Sophie, was forced to undergo surgery due to an illness. Sophie, the mother of his two children, previously suffered a stroke but it is unknown why she recently underwent surgery.
He told the World Snooker Tour after beating Haris Tahir in his opening match at the Xi’an Grand Prix: “I’ve had a bit of a torrid time off the table. My wife has been very poorly so I’ve not really played snooker for the best part of four or five weeks now.
“I think she’s coming up to about six weeks of recovery tomorrow, so I feel like my snooker is slowly coming back. I’ve started to put a bit more time in, I can focus a bit more on my game. As a result, hopefully you start seeing the results that you’ve been used to.
“It was a last-minute decision to come out to China. It kind of did my head in a little bit – it’s not nice knowing that someone is going to be on the operating table while you’re going to hit some snooker balls around.
“But that’s the sort of sacrifice that me and my family are willing to make to be successful at this game. Sometimes you’ve just got to make sure that your head is clear and thankfully now I feel like I’m getting there.”
It comes after Wilson revealed last year that his mother had been battling breast cancer, having written on Instagram: “Just before this year’s world championships we had the horrible news that my mum was diagnosed with breast cancer.
“My mum is my hero and has sacrificed everything for my career to be successful. My mum and my dad have made me a fighter and she has shown what a fighter she is in fighting off this horrible disease! We celebrated her beating breast cancer last night with family and friends with a cheeky curry!”