The snooker world rankings are the official system of ranking professional
snooker
Snooker (pronounced , ) is a cue sports, cue sport played on a Billiard table#Snooker and English billiards tables, rectangular table covered with a green cloth called baize, with six Billiard table#Pockets 2, pockets, one at each corner and o ...
players to determine automatic qualification and seeding for tournaments on the
World Snooker Tour
The World Snooker Tour (WST) is the main professional snooker tour, consisting of approximately 128 players competing on a circuit of up to 28 tournaments each season. The World Snooker Tour is administered by World Snooker Ltd, the commercial ar ...
. The ranking lists are maintained by the sport's governing body, the
World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association
The World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA) is the governing body of professional snooker and English billiards based in Bristol, England. It owns and publishes the official rules of the two sports and engages in promotion ...
. Each player's world ranking is based on their performances in designated
ranking tournaments over the preceding two years. The world ranking list is updated after every ranking tournament. The system of world rankings was inaugurated in the
1976–77 season. Until the
2013–14 season, the point tariffs for each tournament were set by the governing body, but the rankings transitioned to a prize money list in the
2014–15 season.
Background
The rankings determine the seedings for
tournaments
A tournament is a competition involving at least three competitors, all participating in a sport or game. More specifically, the term may be used in either of two overlapping senses:
# One or more competitions held at a single venue and concentr ...
on the
World Snooker Tour
The World Snooker Tour (WST) is the main professional snooker tour, consisting of approximately 128 players competing on a circuit of up to 28 tournaments each season. The World Snooker Tour is administered by World Snooker Ltd, the commercial ar ...
, organised by the
World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association
The World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA) is the governing body of professional snooker and English billiards based in Bristol, England. It owns and publishes the official rules of the two sports and engages in promotion ...
(WPBSA), and who gets an invite to prestigious invitational events. Tournaments open to the membership are often played in two stages—a qualification stage and the "venue stage"—usually at different locations. In tournaments with a "tiered" format players come into events in different rounds based on their ranking, and in some cases the top players in the sport are seeded through to the venue stage and do not have to play a qualification match. In particular, the top 16 ranked players automatically qualify for the final stages of the
World Championship
A world championship is generally an international competition open to elite competitors from around the world, representing their nations, and winning such an event will be considered the highest or near highest achievement in the sport, game, ...
and the
Masters, so as well as interest in who will be
number one
Number One most commonly refers to:
* 1 (number)
Number One, No. 1, or #1 may also refer to:
Music Albums
* ''Number 1'' (Big Bang album), and the title song
* ''No. 1'' (BoA album), and the title song
* ''No.1'' (EP), by CLC
* ''n.1 ...
, there is typically a lot of interest in which players are likely to maintain or acquire "top 16 status". Players are awarded ranking points according to the round they reach in
ranking tournaments—specially designated tournaments that carry ranking status. Every professional member of the WPBSA is assigned a ranking, whether they are active on the circuit or not.
System
Prior to the introduction of the world rankings, the previous year's winner and runner-up were allocated the top seedings in the World Championship, held annually. As more tournaments were added to the calendar and more players joined the circuit in the 1970s, it became increasingly necessary to seed the tournaments, precipitating the "Order of Merit" for the
1975–76 season. The system was very basic, with seedings based on the results of the last three World Championships, and rankings were formally introduced in 1976 after the World Championship for the
1976–77 season using the same criteria. By the
1982–83 season many more tournaments were being contested, and it seemed reasonable to take those results into consideration too. The
Professional Players Tournament and
International Open were awarded ranking status, working on the same system; the
Classic
A classic is an outstanding example of a particular style; something of lasting worth or with a timeless quality; of the first or highest quality, class, or rank – something that exemplifies its class. The word can be an adjective (a ''c ...
carried ranking points from the
1983–84 season, the
UK Championship
The UK Championship is a professional ranking snooker tournament. It is one of snooker's prestigious Triple Crown events, along with the World Championship and the Masters. It is usually held at the Barbican Centre, York. Ronnie O'Sullivan h ...
and
British Open
The Open Championship, often referred to as The Open or the British Open, is the oldest golf tournament in the world, and one of the most prestigious. Founded in 1860, it was originally held annually at Prestwick Golf Club in Scotland. Later th ...
from
1984–85. The revised system was now based on only the two previous seasons, and updated annually after the World Championship. While the ranking point allocations have undergone modifications down the years the basic system remained the same up until the
2009–10 season. For the
2010–11 season, the system was revised to incorporate ranking updates after every tournament—instead of once a season—in an effort to make the rankings more reflective of current form. The current system utilises a two-year "rolling" format where points from tournaments in the current season replace the points from corresponding tournaments of two seasons ago.
Seedings
The seedings for tournaments change from tournament to tournament: the defending champion is allocated the top seed followed by the reigning world champion and the remaining seeds are taken from a "seeding list".
When the official rankings were only calculated once a year the seedings for tournaments—with the exception of the top two seeds—followed the official rankings.
Players and pundits closely tracked the ranking points earned during a season;
the "provisional rankings" (which had no official status in the game) were the rankings based on the ranking points accumulated in the previous season, combined with those accumulated thus far in the current season, and as the season progressed they converged on the official rankings for the following season.
The provisional rankings gave an indication of a player's form, and as the season approached its dénouement, the provisional rankings would become a source of tension as the battle for the number one spot, top 16 places, and tour qualification intensified.
The introduction of the rolling rankings in 2010 facilitated updates to the seeding list throughout the season. Various "cut-off" points are selected at convenient stages during the season where the rankings are "frozen" and used as seedings for the next few tournaments, until the next revision.
Tariffs
The original "Order of Merit", created for the 1975–76 season and based on just World Championship results, awarded the winner five points, the runner-up four, semi-finalists three, and so on down to one point for players who lost in the last 16. The world rankings, introduced in the following year, used the same allocation. Subsequent tournaments that were assigned ranking status worked on the same system but with the World Championship from 1983 onwards carrying double points. The ranking point allocation was later revised slightly with winners of all bar the World Championship now receiving six points, runners-up five, down to one point for the last 32; the World Championship more or less stayed as it was with ten points for the winner, incrementally reduced by two points for each preceding round, but now awarded one point for the last 32 in line with the other tournaments. In addition to ranking points, merit and frame points were also awarded which were used as a tie-break when players were on equal ranking points. When the game went
open
Open or OPEN may refer to:
Music
* Open (band), Australian pop/rock band
* The Open (band), English indie rock band
* ''Open'' (Blues Image album), 1969
* ''Open'' (Gotthard album), 1999
* ''Open'' (Cowboy Junkies album), 2001
* ''Open'' (YF ...
for the
1991–92 season, the ranking point allocations (devised by the WPBSA chairman on the back of a cigarette pack)
were altered by several factors to accommodate the influx of new players. The tie-break system was dropped but the system remained basically the same with players awarded incrementally more points for each successive round; should a seeded player lose their first match they would receive only half the points allocated to the non-seeded losers in that round. The World Championship continued to award more points than the other events but under the "open era" system the allocations often varied between other events too, with the UK Championship traditionally having the second-highest tariff. The
Players Tour Championship
The Players Tour Championship was a series of snooker tournaments comprising some minor-ranking events played in Europe, and an Asian leg comprising some minor-ranking events in Asia. The series concluded with a Grand Final, where qualification ...
—a secondary professional tour introduced in the 2010–11 season comprising a series of minor events—also carried ranking points, but at a much lower tariff. The ranking point schedule was replaced by a prize money list for the
2014–15 season, with prize money earnings in events carrying ranking status contributing to a players ranking.
Prize money rankings schedule
References
External links
World Rankingsat
World Snooker
The World Snooker Tour (WST) is the main professional snooker tour, consisting of approximately 128 players competing on a circuit of up to 28 tournaments each season. The World Snooker Tour is administered by World Snooker Ltd, the commercial ar ...
{{Snooker lists