Kyren Wilson may be the reigning Players Championship winner, but he won’t be in the draw for the 2026 edition in Telford later this month.
The Players Championship (Feb 17-22) boasts an elite lineup from the one-year ranking list, representing the highest-earning competitors from ranking events across the current season.
But despite being a two-time winner of invitational tournaments this term, Wilson has struggled in the rankers and has been left chasing spots at some of the calendar’s most lucrative events.
The 34 year-old reached the quarter-finals of last week’s German Masters, which was only his third run to the last eight of a ranking event since the start of the campaign.
That performance helped him rise to 18th on the one-year list, but the Englishman duly required at least a semi-final spot at this week’s World Grand Prix – the last counting event before the cut-off for Telford – to break into the top 16.
Up against Xiao Guodong in the last 32 of the competition in Hong Kong on Tuesday, however, Wilson struggled for form and bowed out in limp fashion following a 5-2 loss.
The Kettering cueist won last year’s Players Championship at the Telford International Centre with a 10-9 defeat of Judd Trump in the final.
That took his career tally of ranking crowns to ten, but he has been unable to add to that number since then and, with the way the qualification works for events on the Players Series, he now won’t have the chance to defend that crown.
Wilson, of course, has enjoyed notable success during the 2025/26 snooker season, winning the Shanghai Masters in China and the Masters at the Alexandra Palace in London – the last one as recently as a few weeks ago.
Yet for whatever reason, he has not been able to replicate that kind of form in the ranking tournaments.
Wilson, who is the world number two on the official two-year rankings, also faces an uphill battle to qualify for the Tour Championship in Manchester.
That event features only the top 12 from the one-year list, and he will have just two outings before its cut-off point – at the Welsh Open and the World Open – if he’s to secure qualification there.
Several other high-profile names are also struggling to get into the Players and Tour Championships through the one-year list.
The likes of world champion Zhao Xintong, Ding Junhui, and Ali Carter are currently set to miss out of both comps as things stand.
One player who will have no such concerns is Mark Selby, who sits handily near the top of these standings in second place, largely thanks to his UK Championship triumph in December.
Selby, who is the second favourite in the outright sports betting NZ market for the World Grand Prix with odds of 4/1, got his week off to a fine start on day one courtesy of a routine 5-0 thumping of Aaron Hill.
Zhou Yuelong and Elliot Slessor also advanced to the last 16 with respective 5-2 victories over Stephen Maguire and Stuart Bingham.
Wu Yize, Barry Hawkins, Zhang Anda, and Chang Bingyu joined them in the next round with wins during the evening session of play.
The provisional one-year rankings list can be viewed by clicking here (snooker.org).
Featured photo credit: WST
