The first ranking event of the new snooker season has concluded, but there hasn’t been much movement in the world rankings.
The 2023/24 campaign launched with a whimper rather than a bang and a laborious four-week edition of Championship League Snooker.
Played behind closed doors and with one of the smaller prize funds on the snooker calendar, it didn’t have a huge impact on the official two-year rankings.
The Championship League incorporates a league format for the majority of the competition and then a sprint best-of-five frame final, providing opportunities for some lower-ranked competitors to contest the latter stages.
The likes of Chris Wakelin, Noppon Saengkham, Cao Yupeng, Xiao Guodong, and Sam Craigie all reached the last eight in Leicester.
But despite all that, the title-deciding encounter ultimately proved to be an affair between a couple of proven champions.
Shaun Murphy overcame Mark Williams 3-0 at the Morningside Arena on Friday evening to land a 12th career ranking success and a third from this calendar year alone.
Official World Snooker Tour rankings
Despite having withdrawn from the event, Ronnie O’Sullivan maintains his status as the world number one in the snooker rankings.
O’Sullivan boasts a small advantage over world champion Luca Brecel in second and Mark Allen in third.
The latter pair will likely challenge for top spot at various stages later this season, so that will be an ongoing plot line to keep an eye on.
Murphy, who remains in seventh after earning ยฃ33,000 for his triumph, also has aspirations of challenging for the number one position.
The 40 year-old is still more than ยฃ400,000 shy of O’Sullivan’s target, but Murphy has hardly any points to defend this season and will reduce the gap quickly should he manage to sustain this level of form.
The remaining positions in the top eight are as they were following the World Championship, with Judd Trump in fourth, Mark Selby in fifth, Neil Robertson in sixth, and Kyren Wilson in eighth.
Williams leapfrogs old rival John Higgins into ninth after reaching the Championship League final, from which he pocketed ยฃ23,000.
A little further down, Iran’s Hossein Vafaei has joined the top 16 for the first time in his career.
David Gilbert, who was defending the points he garnered from his Championship League Snooker success in 2021, drops three places to number 23.
The biggest mover is Craigie, whose reward for reaching Stage Three of the tournament is a six-place jump from 51 to 45 in the pecking order.
| World Rankings | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ronnie O’Sullivan | ยฃ883,000 |
| 2 | Luca Brecel | ยฃ875,500 |
| 3 | Mark Allen | ยฃ837,500 |
| 4 | Judd Trump | ยฃ556,000 |
| 5 | Mark Selby | ยฃ549,000 |
| 6 | Neil Robertson | ยฃ542,000 |
| 7 | Shaun Murphy | ยฃ472,500 |
| 8 | Kyren Wilson | ยฃ424,000 |
| 9 | Mark Williams | ยฃ412,000 |
| 10 | John Higgins | ยฃ396,500 |
| 11 | Ali Carter | ยฃ300,000 |
| 12 | Robert Milkins | ยฃ294,500 |
| 13 | Jack Lisowski | ยฃ279,000 |
| 14 | Gary Wilson | ยฃ260,000 |
| 15 | Ding Junhui | ยฃ243,500 |
| 16 | Hossein Vafaei | ยฃ241,000 |
| — | — | — |
| 17 | Ryan Day | ยฃ238,500 |
| 18 | Anthony McGill | ยฃ212,000 |
| 19 | Barry Hawkins | ยฃ204,500 |
| 20 | Ricky Walden | ยฃ193,000 |
BetVictor Series
Murphy, meanwhile, takes an early lead in the BetVictor Series race.
The money leader after the eight counting events this season will again receive a bumper bonus worth ยฃ150,000.
The series will include the four BetVictor Home Nations Series events, the German Masters, the European Masters, and the Shoot Out in addition to the already completed Championship League.
Last season, Robert Milkins secured a memorable triumph in the Welsh Open to finish on top of the BetVictor Series standings.
| BetVictor Series | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Shaun Murphy | ยฃ33,000 |
| 2 | Mark Williams | ยฃ23,000 |
| 3 | Sam Craigie | ยฃ11,000 |
| 4 | Chris Wakelin | ยฃ11,000 |
| 5 | Robert Milkins | ยฃ9,000 |
| 6 | Noppon Saengkham | ยฃ9,000 |
| 7 | Cao Yupeng | ยฃ8,000 |
| 8 | Xiao Guodong | ยฃ8,000 |
What is the next snooker event?
The next ranking event in the 2023/24 snooker season will be the European Masters in Germany, taking place next month from August 22 to 27.
There will be qualifying for that tournament next week at the Morningside Arena (July 25 to 29).
Featured photo credit: WST
The rankings haven’t been updated on snooker.org. I’ve also this season so far been unable to access frame scores and breaks like you normally can.
Snooker.org has been working fine for me in terms of updates. The live scoring is an ongoing issue with WST, though. They have promised an updated platform to access frame scores, breaks, and other stats. But in the meantime, they have taken away their old scoring system and replaced it with something that has limited information and barely works. There has already been quite a lot made about it on socials.
You sound perhaps a little jaded with how you start the article, not liking the championship league. Although it is very unlikeable. And you mention the few low ranked players who made it to the final stages but never really threatened – you seem a bit cynical, there. Although again, the winners are usually predictable in sport.
But sure that’s snooker, that’s sport. You sound fed up covering it, sometimes.
Also, a lot of ranking events nowadays, whether it’s the largely shorter format home nations stuff, or the championship league, or the wst classic – I mean, Judd Trump and Kyren Wilson have racked up a few titles which are not proper best of 19 or 17 finals.
You look at the class of 92 and their ranking wins are all proper wins. Ronnie’s are anyway. I think Higgins too. Williams’ latest one was a shorter one, I think.
But it’s a bit of a joke. Ranking title tallies are degraded by not having a distinction between minor ranking events and events with full ranking status. I mean, Kyren Wilson apparently has won 6 titles or something like that. That’s absolute nonsense. I think he’s won 3. But that lad is so ambitious and unscrupulous, he talks as if he’s won all proper ranking titles. It’s depressing.
Thanks for the information. It’s fine for the frame scores but when you click that square icon to get details of breaks I could see WST are offering nothing.