Snooker world rankings 1986/1987
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA), the governing body for professional snooker, first introduced a ranking system for professional players in 1976, with the aim of seeding players for the World Snooker Championship. The reigning champion would be automatically seeded first, the losing finalist from the previous year seeded second, and the other seedings based on the ranking list. Initially, the rankings were based on performances in the preceding three world championships.[1] The list for the 1986/87 season was the first to only take account of results over two seasons.[2]
Players in the top 16 of the rankings were seeded into the last-32 round of the 1987 World Snooker Championship, and received invitations to the 1987 Masters; in the 1985/86 season top 16 players were guaranteed at least £11,773.50 in prize money, while players ranked 17th to 32nd were only guaranteed to earn £4,570.50.[2]
Liam Kelly of the Evening Herald commented that although the WPBSA's ranking system was intended to be fair, it was "cumbersome and complicated".[3] He noted that WPBSA chairman Rex Williams was ranked 16th instead of John Parrott who had the same number of ranking points as Williams but more merit points, and argued that this "called into question [the] entire system."[3]