Ronnie O’Sullivan will end the current campaign as the sport’s number one in the official world rankings list.
The Rocket had £500,000 from his success in the 2020 World Snooker Championship coming off his two-year tally of earnings.
But O’Sullivan successfully defended that half a million in ranking points with his landmark triumph in this year’s World Championship at the Crucible.
The 46 year-old landed a record-equalling seventh world crown of the modern era with an 18-13 victory over Judd Trump, simultaneously becoming the oldest player to lift the trophy in Sheffield.
First managing the feat 20 years ago, it’s the seventh time overall that O’Sullivan has held the world number one spot at the end of a season.
O’Sullivan finishes just £26,500 in front of Trump, who returns to second in the standings after a fantastic fortnight of his own.
Mark Selby and Neil Robertson are ranked in third and fourth respectively, both dropping places after second-round exits in Sheffield.
However, with less that £150,000 separating the top four, it is bound to be an interesting squabble at the summit throughout the 2022/23 term.
Best of the rest in fifth is John Higgins, who reached four ranking event finals this season and the last four at the Crucible but couldn’t translate that into any silverware.
China’s Zhao Xintong rises to a career-high sixth ahead of Mark Williams and Kyren Wilson, with Shaun Murphy and Jack Lisowski rounding off the top ten.
Elsewhere, Scotland’s Anthony McGill holds onto the final spot in the top 16 by a margin of just £500 from Iran’s Hossein Vafaei.
The latter will likely make the push into the elite bracket at some point during the upcoming campaign.
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After reaching the World Championship quarter-finals, Stephen Maguire is back up to no.24 and heading in the right direction again.
China’s former world number one Ding Junhui finishes this season just inside the top 32.
Meanwhile, there were several notable names who suffered relief and heartache down by the crucial top 64 cut-off line.
Qualification for the Crucible helped Matthew Stevens and Thepchaiya Un-Nooh to tour safety, while reaching the last qualifying round proved to be enough for Dominic Dale too.
However, Fergal O’Brien, Nigel Bond, Michael Holt, Kurt Maflin, and Andrew Higginson were a few of the more familiar names who failed to survive the cut.
Ending the season outside the world’s top 64 means that they will have to enter Q School to entertain a chance of competing as professionals again next season.
Things look much brighter for young Jackson Page, the 20 year-old having ended the season strongly by reaching the last 16 in Sheffield.
With a ranking of no.72 and no points to defend during the second year of his tour card, Page looks set to soon be a top 64 player for the first time in his career.
Snooker World Rankings Top 16
| Ranking | Player | Money |
| 1 | Ronnie O’Sullivan | £1,036,000 |
| 2 | Judd Trump | £1,009,500 |
| 3 | Mark Selby | £914,500 |
| 4 | Neil Robertson | £902,000 |
| 5 | John Higgins | £537,000 |
| 6 | Zhao Xintong | £434,500 |
| 7 | Mark Williams | £423,500 |
| 8 | Kyren Wilson | £419,000 |
| 9 | Shaun Murphy | £316,000 |
| 10 | Jack Lisowski | £315,500 |
| 11 | Barry Hawkins | £309,000 |
| 12 | Luca Brecel | £297,000 |
| 13 | Stuart Bingham | £296,000 |
| 14 | Mark Allen | £286,500 |
| 15 | Yan Bingtao | £253,000 |
| 16 | Anthony McGill | £202,500 |
Click here to view the official rankings (WST)
Featured photo credit: WST
It’s a great achievement by Ronnie O’Sullivan, although Trump and Robertson were disadvantaged by winning the Champion of Champions and Masters respectively, which aren’t included. But in general O’Sullivan would probably value a World Championship much more, especially since the number 1 position will fluctuate randomly anyway in the next few months.
In some ways more important is the relegation, because their careers are on the line. In addition to your list are Sunny Akani, Ash Carty and Gao Yang (who fell by £500 after two amateurs overtook him with surprise results in the qualifiers). These are younger players who could have a future in the game. Most will enter Q School, except for Bond (retired) and Lichtenberg (who seems to have quit, following Stefanov and Filipiak who did the same last year). It seems like more young players retire than older ones!
The draws for Q School are very uneven, as always. For example, QS2 has one section containing only Surety, Ajaib, Walker and Sharav as former professions, whereas the other sections have at least 12 such players, and good ones. You’ll be disappointed that Fergal O’Brien has a significantly tougher path; Akani and O’Donnell also have very bad draws.
It surprised me that Akani, Gao and Zhao have entered the UK Q School, as well as several other Chinese hopefuls. This mean that the 4 qualifiers from the Asian Q School could be weak. In the absence of Chinese backing there might be funding problems which could mean they never arrive at all. This would add to what will be a large number of weak players already, with some much stronger players unable to qualify. Basically, we’re getting the wrong players on tour.