World snooker rankings

The snooker world rankings are the official system of ranking professional snooker players to determine automatic qualification and seeding for tournaments on the World Snooker Tour. They are maintained by the sport's governing body, the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association. A player's ranking is based on their performances in designated ranking tournaments over the preceding two years, and it is updated after every tournament. The world rankings were inaugurated in the 1976/1977 season and the point tariffs used to be set by the governing body, but the rankings transitioned to a prize money list in the 2014/2015 season.

The rankings determine the seedings for tournaments on the World Snooker Tour, organised by the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association, 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 and the Masters, so as well as interest in who will be number one, 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.

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