Мировой рейтинг снукера: правила и принципы формирования

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The snooker world rankings are the official system of ranking professional snooker players to determine automatic qualification and seeding for tournaments on the World Snooker Tour. First introduced in the 1976–77 season, world rankings are maintained by the sport's governing body, the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association. Each player's world ranking is based on their performances in designated ranking tournaments over the preceding two years. Until the 2009–10 season, rankings were updated once annually, following the World Snooker Championship. Since the 2010–11 season, rankings have been updated after every ranking tournament. The world rankings were formerly based on point tariffs set by the governing body, but this system transitioned to a prize money list for the 2014–15 season.

The rankings determine the seedings for tournaments on the World Snooker Tour, organised by the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA), and who gets an invite to prestigious invitational events. Tournaments open to the membership are often played in two stages—a qualification stage and the "venue stage"—usually at different locations. In tournaments with a "tiered" format players come into events in different rounds based on their ranking, and in some cases the top players in the sport are seeded through to the venue stage and do not have to play a qualification match. In particular, the top 16 ranked players automatically qualify for the final stages of the World Championship and the Masters, so as well as interest in who will be number one, there is typically a lot of interest in which players are likely to maintain or acquire "top 16 status". Players are awarded ranking points according to the round they reach in ranking tournaments—specially designated tournaments that carry ranking status. Every professional member of the WPBSA is assigned a ranking, whether they are active on the circuit or not.