Mark Williams has reassured fans after the former snooker world champion posted a picture of him requiring oxygen during a match.

Welshman Williams, who has won 26 ranking events during his 33 years as a professional player and is a double Masters champion, was playing an exhibition event in Tibet - with the 49-year-old posting a photo of himself on social media wearing nasal tubes and connected to an oxygen tank. He said: "Oxygen needed at the interval" before explaining to worried fans that he was playing at an altitude of 12,000 feet, adding "I'm not sick at the moment."

In further posts on social media site X, Williams said: "I'm in Tibet playing, if you don't take oxygen it's goodnight Irene" and posted: "Table conditions are nice, just can't walk around it properly." Williams, who won the 2018 world championship with an epic victory against Wizard of Wishaw John Higgins, was competing at the Tianren Cup Lhasa Winter Plateau Snooker Challenge in Lhasa, located 11,998 feet above sea level.

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The high altitude means there is less oxygen available with players needing access to tanks to prevent altitude sickness - or passing out. Williams is not alone in struggling in Lhasa, with Ronnie O’Sullivan also taking on oxygen when he played in Tibet with Ding Junhui last year. Ding returned to the tournament this year, and was joined by world number one Judd Trump and Scottish Open semi-finalist Xiao Guodong.

Trump, who pulled out of the Scottish Open in December saying he was focusing on a bid to become world champion, and Ding will return to UK shores for the first time in 2025 when The Masters gets underway on January 12, with a blockbuster tie between John Higgins and old foe Ronnie O'Sullivan the first match scheduled at London's Alexandra Palace.