Who has won the most ranking events in professional snooker?
A potted history on ranking events and a full list of players who have claimed at least one title.
Ranking events and a world ranking system have been part of professional snooker since the mid 1970s.
The World Snooker Championship had regularly been held since 1926/27, but it wasn’t until the mid 1970s that the top flight circuit began to thrive as the visibility of the sport and its popularity increased.
A ranking system was first used for the 1976/77 season, although the world championship was the only ranking event. To populate a ranking list, the authorities used the results from the three previous world championships (1974-76) and retrospectively awarded each of these editions ranking event status.
As snooker enjoyed a significant boom period in the 1980s, further events were given ranking status, and the rankings reflected who the best and most consistent players in the world were.
To date, over 400 ranking events have been played, with tournaments held in 24 different countries: Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Belgium, Canada, China, England, France, Germany, Gibraltar, Hong Kong, India, Latvia, Malta, Netherlands, Northern Ireland, Republic of Ireland, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Scotland, Thailand, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Wales.
Full list of ranking event winners in order of who has the most titles:
41: Ronnie O'Sullivan
36: Stephen Hendry
33: John Higgins
31: Judd Trump
28: Steve Davis
27: Mark Williams
26: Neil Robertson
25: Mark Selby
15: Ding Junhui
13: Shaun Murphy
12: Mark Allen
10: Jimmy White, Kyren Wilson
9: John Parrott, Peter Ebdon
7: Stephen Maguire
6: Ken Doherty, Stuart Bingham, Ali Carter, Zhao Xintong
5: Ray Reardon, Stephen Lee, Barry Hawkins
4: Ryan Day, Luca Brecel
3: James Wattana, Paul Hunter, Ricky Walden, Marco Fu, Gary Wilson
2: Tony Knowles, Dennis Taylor, Cliff Thorburn, Doug Mountjoy, Alan McManus, Graeme Dott, Dominic Dale, Anthony McGill, Michael White, Joe Perry, Robert Milkins, Xiao Guodong, Chris Wakelin, Thepchaiya Un-Nooh
1: John Spencer, Terry Griffiths, Alex Higgins, Willie Thorne, Silvino Francisco, Joe Johnson, Neal Foulds, Tony Meo, Mike Hallett, Steve James, Bob Chaperon, Tony Jones, Dave Harold, Nigel Bond, Fergal O'Brien, Chris Small, David Gray, Matthew Stevens, Martin Gould, Liang Wenbo, Mark King, Anthony Hamilton, Michael Georgiou, Jimmy Robertson, Matthew Selt, Yan Bingtao, Michael Holt, Jordan Brown, David Gilbert, Hossein Vafaei, Fan Zhengyi, Zhang Anda, Tom Ford, Lei Peifan, Jack Lisowski, Wu Yize, Alfie Burden
81 players from 14 different countries have won at least one world ranking event.
The most decorated ranking event winner in the history of professional snooker is Ronnie O’Sullivan, who currently has 41 titles. ‘The Rocket’ overtook Stephen Hendry’s benchmark of 36 when he won the 2020 World Championship.
The ‘newest’ ranking event champion is Alfie Burden following his title victory at the 2025 Snooker Shoot Out.
Following several ranking event winners from the United Kingdom, the first player from outside the UK and the first player from North America to win a ranking title was Cliff Thorburn (Canada) at the 1980 World Championship.
Silvino Francisco (South Africa) was the first player from Africa to win a ranking event with his success at the 1985 British Open.
Thailand's James Wattana won the 1992 Strachan Open to become Asia's maiden ranking event champion; Australia's Neil Robertson triumphed at the 2006 Grand Prix and was the first ranking winner from Oceania. Robertson is the most decorated ranking event winner from outside of the UK, ever.
The first player from mainland Europe to triumph at a ranking event was Belgium’s Luca Brecel at the 2017 China Championship.