Ranking event champions in danger of professional tour relegation in 2025

We’re now well into the second half of the 2024/25 professional season, and attention starts to turn to the various ranking lists and the permutations involved.

For many players lower down the world rankings, the next few months will be very sparse for them in terms of competitive action if they haven’t qualified for the German Masters, World Open, or any of the three Players Series events.

For some, they have just two events remaining - the Welsh Open, and the season-ending World Championship.

Following the 2025 World Snooker Championship at the Crucible Theatre, the world’s top 64 ranked players are all guaranteed to stay on tour for next season’s 2025/26 term.

The players who end up outside of the world’s top 64 - unless they have a second year on their two-year tour card to come, or finish inside the top four on the one-year list - will be relegated from the World Snooker Tour, and would need to graduate from Q School if they wanted to remain as a professional next season.

Another possible way a player can earn a tour card - if they don’t already have one - is if they qualify for the Crucible. This concept has been in place for the past few years, and it is understood that it will be again.

Looking at the projected end-of-season list, it makes grim reading for a few former ranking event champions and top 16 stars who will need huge finishes to the season if they are to avoid demotion from the sport’s top tier and facing the prospect of Q School.

One of those in serious danger is two-time ranking event champion and former Masters finalist Joe Perry, who is currently ranked 73rd on the provisional list.

The 50-year-old - who won the Welsh Open in 2022 when he defeated Judd Trump in the final - has endured a very difficult season, so far, having not gone past the last 64 of any event.

On the one-year (seasonal) list Perry is outside of the top 80, meaning he is unlikely to be saved that way, or qualify for any of the three lucrative Players Series events where he could pick up much needed ranking points.

Perry - who has been a constant on snooker’s premier circuit since 1992 - has qualified for the big-money World Open in Yushan, though.

Another very familiar figure of the professional snooker fraternity is 53-year-old Anthony Hamilton who has been plying his trade on the top tier non-stop since 1991.

Former world number 10 and 2017 German Masters champion Hamilton is currently 67th on the end-of-season projections. Like Perry, Hamilton is outside the top 80 on the one-year list, but in pre-Christmas qualifying he didn’t make the main venue stages of the World Open (or the German Masters).

As it stands, Hamilton only has the Welsh and Worlds to play in this season.

There are a few other ranking event champions currently set to finish the wrong side of the cut, but they may be spared relegation via another route.

Marco Fu is provisionally 68th and Jimmy White is 93rd. However, there is a likelihood that both would receive an 'Invitational Tour Card' - a career lifeline that both have been awarded with and accepted in the past.

With the World Snooker Tour now staging the World Grand Prix on Fu's home soil in Hong Kong, it seems likely they would want to keep one of Asia's most successful snooker players within their ranks.

2016 German Masters champion Martin Gould remains in the professional standings, but he didn't play a single match on the World Snooker Tour in 2024, presumably due to an ongoing injury.

In April 2024, the sport's governing body the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA) offered Gould a 12-month extension to his spot on the pro tour due to a medical exemption having missed several events that season because of injury which saw drop down the rankings and facing relegation.

However, since that announcement, Gould has not featured in any WST event, and it is unclear what his future position will be. He is currently 108th on the projected standings.

2023 World Champion Luca Brecel could drop down the world rankings like a stone when the £500,000 he earned on his greatest snooker day is removed from his rankings total this May.

There is still a possibility that Brecel could end this season outside the world’s top 64, but he has alleviated those concerns in recent weeks following a positive run to the quarter-finals of the 2024 Scottish Open.

The Belgian star appears to be finding some good form having reached the final of the subsequent Riyadh Season Snooker Championship (non-ranking) and qualifying for the televised stages of the World Open in China.

To view all the different ranking lists, please visit the WPSBA website. The provisional end-of-season list can be viewed here.