Mark Williams wants qualifying scrapped and provides theory for recent surprise results
Mark Williams has called for qualifying to be ditched on the World Snooker Tour and would agree to seeing tour player numbers reduced in order to accommodate this.
Three-time World Snooker Champion Williams - who has been on the sport’s top flight since 1992 and seen a plethora of changes when it comes to tour formats and structures - believes that all players in a tournament should be playing at the same main venue.
Competing at the 2026 Northern Ireland Open in Belfast where he has made it through to Friday’s quarter-finals, Williams was talking on Radio Snooker with Nick Metcalfe.
It has been a remarkable tournament at the Waterfront Hall, with a long list of star name casualties exiting during the opening round of these televised stages when the seed players entered the fray. Only three members from the elite top 16 negotiated their initial assignment.
Asked by journalist Metcalfe why so many seeds went out early, Williams put it down to the format and the qualifiers having less pressure on them than they did under a flat draw.
“Because we've gone to the tiered system” said 2017 Northern Ireland Open champion Williams.
“The players coming now playing the top 16...they’ve already got their points, already got their money. They’re playing with a lot less pressure.
“When they come here they’ve played a lot of matches, they’ve got some confidence and that’s the main reason I think the top 16 gets beat these days.”
Competition structure has been a hot topic of late with many events on the Tour changing to a tiered draw system over the past few years.
Up until the 2024/25 season, all Home Nations Series events were played under a flat draw, with all 128 entrants (give or take a couple of players at times) starting in the opening round. Nowadays, a tiered draw is used, with the top 32 seeds going straight through to the main venue and into the round 64 where they are joined by 32 qualifiers.
This season we have already seen three blocks of behind-closed-doors qualifying action held at the Mattioli Arena in Leicester, and apart from some of them at the International Championship (which still uses a flat draw system) preliminaries a few weeks back, top 16 exponents have not been involved.
Opinion is divided over the tiered system; speaking to Totally Snookered last month, Jak Jones labelled it as a ‘disgrace’ - but it may have contributed to this unpredictable season we’re having that has seen at least one player from outside of the world’s top 16 featuring in each and every ranking event, so far.
Williams says “everyone must play at the venue”
Later on in his interview with Metcalfe, 51-year-old Williams revealed that he thinks all players should be competing at the same venue and timeframe, meaning no qualifying.
For example, the two rounds of qualifying for the ongoing 2026 Northern Ireland Open were held in Leicester last month.
The Welshman said: “In an ideal world, I would like to see however many people on tour, whether it’s 96, 128 - however many they can fit - everyone in a flat draw, but they’d have to be at the venue; everyone must be at the venue. Forget the qualifiers.
In order to accommodate this idea, Williams would support reducing the professional player roster. “...if that meant knocking the tour down to 96 then, for me, I think they should do it.
“But that’s my point, a lot of people disagree with it, but I don’t think you should be playing qualifiers anymore...the venues are big enough to take everyone to the venue.”
Prior to the Northern Ireland Open, world number 23 Elliot Slessor posted online about cutting the pro tour to 96 players in order to ‘guarantee proper money’ for everyone.
To view the full draw, results, schedule, and other information from the 2026 Northern Ireland Open, visit our tournament information centre here.