OK, here is why Ronnie has withdrawn:
Actually, Jason had told me this morning, asking me to keep quiet about it. Now, seeing the fans reactions he has himself decided to make it public. Yes, Ronnie did play his exhibitions despite not feeling great, but playing an exhibition is one thing, playing competitive snooker is something else entirely. Also those exhibitions had been scheduled to be played last year, covid had forced Jason, Ronnie and the clubs to postpone them. Knowing Ronnie he certainly wouldn’t have wanted to disappoint those fans again after such long wait unless he was really unable to hold his cue.
Regarding exhibitions, Jason has made another announcement
Great news that!
Finally, back to Ronnie’s withdrawal and the re-inclusion of Mark Joyce. This triggered a lot of negative reactions. But really? Yes, he was already knocked out, he came second in group 32, the group Ronnie won.
Last season, when similar situations happened, the three remaining players in the impacted groups had played each other twice. Honestly that didn’t work out very well.
Some argue that there were other players, in other groups who finished second with more points than Joyce. OK, but they were in different groups, with a different opposition, so how do you compare their performances? If Joyce manages to do well here, despite needing to dash to the venue on short notice, all credits to him. As it stands, he has lost his first match against Steadman and still needs to play Gilbert, so it doesn’t look very likely.
Ronnie O'Sullivan 
Obviously, if he is unwell, my apologies are in order. It is not clear to me why these reasons were not given to the public in the official communiqué. mean, to be ill still looks better than wanton pulling out.
Still a bad start to the season.
It’s unfortunate certainly.
I guess we can assume that whatever is making Ronnie feel unwell is not something contagious that he could have passed on to the folks at his exhibitions…?
It’s not covid, no, and he was taking antibiotics already before the exhos.
Mon there is no excuse to shoe horn Joyce in should never happen hes lost
Are you against top-ups too? Because those guys have not qualified for the main tour, so should not play in it. And are you against redeeming two players via the order of merit? They didn’t win a QF match which is the qualification criteria. In terms of career this is noyhing in comparison.
this is 10 x worst than top ups. top ups would not enter at the last 32 and top ups wouldnt have exited the tournament 3 weeks ago
Well, let’s agree to disagree then. This for me is a strom in a glass of water. Joyce was called last minute because previous experience has shown that the 3 men format does not work well. He had to make last minute arrangements. He was clearly not well prepared. He finished last of the group. It would have been different if the withdrawal had been known well ahead of the event and Joyce had time to prepare and was in with a real chance, but not as it happened here. The big beneficiary of ROS withdrawal was Gilbert.