Sweating it out, Ranking Style

Dave Hendon on Snooker Scene Blog

SWEATING IT OUT
The next week will decide which players will be seeded directly through to the Crucible and which will have to sweat it out at the Betfred.com World Championship qualifiers.

The new rolling ranking system is fairer than the one previously in place. It rewards success, ensuring those players who do well rise up the list immediately rather than having to wait a whole year to see any improvement.

It looks like around 14 of the top 16 places are pretty much set but there are a number of players who can sneak in under the wire through good runs at the Wyldecrest Welsh Open.

Marco Fu played himself into contention by reaching the semi-finals of the German Masters last weekend, which meant he rose from 18th to 15th but he may have to qualify for Newport to remain on track to regain his top 16 place.

Ricky Walden is seeded directly through and a first round victory would probably see him secure.

There are then five players – Stuart Bingham, Stephen Lee, Mark Davis, Andrew Higginson and Mark King – separated by around 800 points.

Bingham would need Fu to lose in Sheffield today and qualify himself and he would grab 16th place – but that’s not factoring in what the players do behind him. He would have to do better than them to squeeze in.

Further down the list, the same calculations are being made for the top 32, 48 and 64.

Players who wish to go mad studying the various machinations should check out prosnookerblog’s excellent running ranking/seedings list, which provides daily updates as to where everyone stands.