Snooker is a cue sport played on a rectangular billiards table covered with a green cloth called baize, with six pockets: one at each corner and one in the middle of each long side. First played by British Army officers stationed in India in the second half of the 19th century, the game is played with 22 balls, comprising a white cue ball, 15 red balls and 6 other balls—a yellow, green, brown, blue, pink and black—collectively called 'the colours'. Using a snooker cue, the individual players or teams take turns to strike the cue ball to pot other balls in a predefined sequence, accumulating points for each successful pot and for each foul committed by the opposing player or team. An individual frame of snooker is won by the player who has scored the most points, and a snooker match ends when a player wins a predetermined number of frames.
Ronald Antonio O'Sullivan is an English professional snooker player. Widely recognised as one of the most talented and accomplished players in snooker history, he has won the World Snooker Championship seven times, a modern-era record he holds jointly with Stephen Hendry. He has also won a record eight Masters titles and a record eight UK Championship titles for a total of 23 Triple Crown titles, the most achieved by any player. He holds the record for the most ranking titles, with 41, and has held the top ranking position multiple times.
Stephen Lee is an English former professional snooker player. He turned professional in 1992, reached a career-high of fifth in the snooker world rankings for the 2000–01 season, and won five ranking titles. His best performances in Triple Crown events were reaching the semi-finals of the 2003 World Championship, where he lost to eventual champion Mark Williams, and reaching the final of the 2008 Masters, where he was runner-up to Mark Selby. He compiled 184 century breaks in professional competition and was noted for his smooth cue action.
Peter David Ebdon is an English retired professional snooker player who is a former world champion and current coach. Ebdon won nine ranking titles during his career, placing him in joint 12th position on the all-time list of ranking tournament winners. He won two Triple Crown titles, the 2002 World Snooker Championship and the 2006 UK Championship.
Clifford Charles Devlin Thorburn is a Canadian retired professional snooker player. Nicknamed "The Grinder" because of his slow, determined style of play, he won the World Snooker Championship in 1980, defeating Alex Higgins 18–16 in the final. He is generally recognised as the sport's first world champion from outside the United Kingdom—since Australian Horace Lindrum's 1952 title is usually disregarded—and he remains the only world champion from the Americas. He was runner-up in two other world championships, losing 21–25 to John Spencer in the 1977 final and 6–18 to Steve Davis in the 1983 final. At the 1983 tournament, Thorburn became the first player to make a maximum break in a World Championship match, achieving the feat in his second-round encounter with Terry Griffiths.
Desmond Rex Williams is an English retired professional billiards and snooker player. He was the second player to make an official maximum break in snooker, achieving this in an exhibition match in December 1965. Williams won the World Professional Billiards Championship from Clark McConachy in 1968, the first time that the title had been contested since 1951. Williams retained the title in several challenge matches in the 1970s and, after losing it to Fred Davis in 1980, regained it from 1982 to 1983.
The Masters is a professional invitational snooker tournament. Held every year since 1975, it is the second-longest-running professional snooker tournament after the World Championship. It is one of the three Triple Crown events, along with the UK Championship and the World Championship. Although not a ranking event, it is regarded as one of the most prestigious tournaments on the World Snooker Tour. The reigning champion is Shaun Murphy, who won his second masters title in 2025, defeating Kyren Wilson 10-7.
The Triple Crown in professional snooker refers to winning the sport's three longest-running and most prestigious tournaments: the World Snooker Championship, the invitational Masters, and the UK Championship. In January 2020, the three tournaments were formally named the Triple Crown Series.
Glen Wilkinson is an Australian professional snooker player from Miranda, New South Wales who is currently ranked the number ten snooker player in Australia. He is also a National Director of Coaching for snooker in Australia.
Steve Mifsud is a Maltese Australian professional snooker player.
The 2002–03 snooker season was a series of snooker tournaments played between 27 August 2002 and 22 May 2003. Due to a legal ban, this was the final season to have events sponsored by tobacco companies. The following table outlines the results for the ranking events and the invitational events. Mark Williams won all three triple crown events - the last player to do so in a single season.
The 2011–12 snooker season was a series of snooker tournaments played between 1 June 2011 and 7 May 2012. The Brazil Masters became the first major professional event held in South America, and the Australian Goldfields Open the first ranking event in Australia. The World Cup was held again after 1996. At the end of the season Ronnie O'Sullivan was named the World Snooker Player of the Year and the Snooker Writers Player of the Year, Judd Trump the Fans Player of the Year and Luca Brecel the Rookie of the Year. Stuart Bingham received the "Performance of the Year" for winning his first ranking event, the Australian Goldfields Open. Stephen Hendry's maximum break at the World Championship received "The Magic Moment" award. Walter Donaldson, Mark Williams, John Higgins and Ronnie O'Sullivan were inducted into the Hall of Fame.
The World Snooker Tour (WST) is the main professional snooker tour, consisting of about 128 players competing on a circuit of up to 28 tournaments each season. The World Snooker Tour is administered by World Snooker Ltd, the commercial arm of professional snooker, which introduced the World Snooker Tour name, logo, and revised website as part of a 2020 rebranding. The principal stakeholder in World Snooker Ltd is Matchroom Sport, which owns 51 percent of the company; the sport's governing body, the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA), owns 26 percent. To compete on the World Snooker Tour, players must be WPBSA members.
Shaun Peter Murphy is an English professional snooker player who won the 2005 World Championship and has completed the Triple Crown. Nicknamed "The Magician", Murphy is noted for his straight cue action and his long potting.
The 2018–19 snooker season was a series of professional snooker tournaments played between 10 May 2018 and 23 June 2019. The season was made up of ranking tournaments, non-ranking tournaments and variant tournaments. In total, 54 events were competed in the 2018–19 season, beginning with the pro–am 2018 Vienna Open, and ending with the 2019 World Snooker Championship.
The 2019–20 snooker season was a series of professional snooker tournaments played between 9 May 2019 and 22 August 2020. In total, 47 events were held during the season: however, the ending of the season was highly disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. 18 world ranking tournaments were planned to take place, but only 17 were played. An event was held in Austria, the first time in any snooker season, while the 2020 China Open was cancelled. The Tour Championship and the World Snooker Championship were postponed, and the Gibraltar Open played with no audience. The season contained 128 professional tour players, 35 of which had been given new two-year places on the tour from a combination of invitations and qualifying events.
Sourav Kothari is an Indian player of English billiards. He was world champion in 2018.
Chris Christofi is an Australian born Greek-Cypriot entrepreneur, author, philanthropist and sports sponsor. He is the founder and CEO of Reventon. Since 2010, he has been the major sponsor of cue sports, is the director of the Reventon Snooker Academy and also created the Reventon Triple Crown.
In 2018, championships were held across three continents to determine the best players in major cue sports, including snooker, pool, and English billiards. While these are mostly single player sports, some matches and tournaments are held as either doubles or as team events. The snooker season runs between May and April; the pool and billiards seasons run through the calendar year.
Sourav Kothari (Masters and Classic) 
James Mifsud (International)
