Calls intensify for world rankings overhaul as snooker expert believes change is coming

The World Snooker Tour currently uses a rolling two-year prize-money based world ranking list that essentially means players amass cumulative totals for the prize money they have won at ranked competitions over the past 24 months.

If a player wins £50,000 at a ranking event, that gets added to their overall total, but what ever prize money they earned at the same corresponding point two years ago gets removed.

World rankings were introduced to professional snooker in 1976 as a way of seeding players for the 1977 World Snooker Championship - the first year the sport’s blue riband extravaganza was held at the Crucible Theatre.

A points-based formula was used until the 2014/15 season when this changed to being a prize money list - the way it has remained since. The system change coincided with Barry Hearn’s administration taking over the sport a few years before, during which time the circuit was reinvigorated with a plethora of new tournaments.

But with huge differences between the first prizes of certain events on the Tour - for example, £500,000 for winning the World Championship, and £100,000 for claiming a Home Nations event title - there has been plenty of talk in recent years as to whether this money-based system is fair, and if the rankings are truly representative of the sport’s hierarchy.

For example, Luca Brecel collected £500,000 for winning the 2023 World Snooker Championship, but struggled to recapture anything like that form over the next two seasons, making just one ranked semi-final during that period.

Despite his downturn in results, though, Brecel always maintained at least a top eight spot throughout that time.

However, after bowing out in the quarter-finals of the 2025 World Snooker Championship - when half-a-million was wiped from his tally - Brecel plummeted down the standings, out of not only the top 16, but the top 32 as well. This season he may face a battle to keep his tour card altogether.

Hendon on rankings: “they will have to change the ranking system”

The rankings topic has taken another twist in recent seasons with the professional circuit making a big shift back towards using a tiered draw system for most of its ranking events.

This means players enter at different stages of a tournament depending on their world ranking/seeding; in contrast to the ‘flat draw’ method where everyone started in round one, regardless of being the world number one or the world number 100.

When sports promotions supremo Hearn took charge, he was vocal about snooker’s standings being based on a ‘meritocracy’ and getting rid of protection for the top 16. But tiered draws are firmly back.

The argument now is that in some events, the lowest ranked players need to win five matches in order to collect the same prize money ranking points that a top 16 player gets for winning just one match.

For example, if we look at last season’s Saudi Arabia Masters, UK Championship, and World Championship, the top 16 in each of those events went directly through to the last 32 where they were joined by 16 qualifiers.

Their opening match would have been against a qualifier, and if they won their first match in each of those competitions, they would be on a guaranteed £75,000 (30k each for Saudi and the Worlds, 15k for the UK).

In comparison, for one of the lowest ranked players on tour, they may have had to win 14 matches to pick up such money.

The Saudi Arabia Masters has recently been scrapped from the tour, but the returning China Open - with significant prize money - is using a tiered format.

Speaking exclusively to the Totally Snookered Vodcast, top snooker commentator, journalist and author David Hendon believes that change needs to come, and that change may be around the corner.

“I think now it means is that they will have to change the ranking system” said Hendon.

“I don't see how you can have a prize money list with a tiered draw system, because for example, in the China Open, the top 16 have got to win one match to get 15,000 ranking points, whereas the world number 100 will have to win five, right?

“So surely it will have to go to a points system where there aren't such big disparities between rounds and between tournaments. And I think there's a sort of growing sense in the game that that's probably going to happen over the next year or so.”

Change the cut-offs and get rid of Q School?

Later, Hendon went into greater detail in his analysis of the current ranking structure, suggesting that the relegation cut-off should change, and Q School be scrapped in favour of more places from the Q Tour, in turn boosting the amateur circuit.

"I think the cut-off is too severe at 64. I think the players in the 60s are seriously good players and they're under so much pressure to just try and stay on tour.

“I'd like to see it maybe go down to about 80 and maybe you could scrap the Q School, have a playoff event for people that drop off so they have the chance to get back on, and then emphasise the Q Tour, the amateur tour which will maybe build up the amateur game in the process.”

Green baize expert Hendon is the latest high-profile name to put his case across for changing the rankings set-up.

During the 2026 World Snooker Championship, former world number one Neil Robertson spoke with Totally Snookered saying: "I'm not too sure why we got away from the ranking points system in the first place. It seems pretty fair. Everyone was kind of in the position that you should have been in.”

"I think that with the prize money list, I think the issue is probably when it comes to defending your points because of how our ranking points it really tapers off because it matches the prize money.

"I think if you look at tennis, the drop off is probably like 60% what the runner-up gets whereas in snooker its 40%, so if you even make the final of the event you won two years prior to that you still haven't gone anywhere close to defending the points. So that's where my issue is.”

Shaun Murphy and Stephen Maguire are other players who talked last season about changing the current rankings set-up.