The Welsh Open is a professional ranking snooker tournament that has been held annually since 1992. It replaced the Welsh Professional Championship, which ran annually from 1980 to 1991 and was open only to Welsh players. The Welsh Open is now the longest running ranking event after the World Championship and the UK Championship. Since the 2016–17 season, it has been one of four tournaments in the Home Nations Series, alongside the Northern Ireland Open, the Scottish Open, and the English Open. Since 2017, the winner of the event has received the Ray Reardon Trophy, named after the Welsh six-time world champion. Reardon himself presented the newly named trophy to 2017 winner Stuart Bingham.
The Players Tour Championship was a series of snooker tournaments comprising some minor-ranking events played in Europe, and an Asian leg comprising some minor-ranking events in Asia. The series concluded with a Grand Final, where qualification was based on performance in the other PTC events, and had the status of a full ranking tournament. Each regular event lasted for at least three days, with qualifying days for amateurs should the event be oversubscribed. Each event costs £100 to enter, and Main Tour players can gain ranking points in the events.
Patrick Einsle is a former German professional snooker player.
The 2012–13 snooker season was a series of snooker tournaments played between 16 May 2012 and 6 May 2013. The season featured two new ranking events: the Wuxi Classic and the International Championship. The tour had a record five ranking events in China, and three new PTC events in Asia. The tour also visited Bulgaria for the first time in its history, and returned to Poland, Belgium and Australia. Before the start of the season World Snooker requested every player to sign a players contract, that would allow players to choose which events they want to enter – no player was forced to play in any event. At the end of the season Mark Selby was named the World Snooker Player of the Year, the Snooker Writers' Player of the Year and the Fans' Player of the Year and Ian Burns the Rookie of the Year. Ronnie O'Sullivan received the "Performance of the Year" for winning his fifth World title after playing just one competitive match during the season. Jimmy Robertson's 57 break in just 130 seconds at the Snooker Shoot Out received the "Magic Moment of the Year" award. Terry Griffiths, Joe Johnson, Peter Ebdon, Ken Doherty, Graeme Dott, Shaun Murphy and Neil Robertson were inducted into the Hall of Fame.
The 2013–14 snooker season was a series of snooker tournaments played between 6 June 2013 and 5 May 2014. From this season every qualifying match was held open to the public at various venues in the United Kingdom, replacing the World Snooker Academy in Sheffield. The number of wild-card players at the Chinese ranking events, except the Shanghai Masters, was reduced from eight to four and former Main Tour players were excluded. A professional player could not be selected for more than one wild-card match during the season.
The 2014–15 snooker season was a series of snooker tournaments played between 8 May 2014 and 4 May 2015. The Riga Open was the first professional snooker tournament held in Latvia. The season also saw the first professional tournament in Portugal as the Lisbon Open took place.
Fraser Patrick is a Scottish former professional snooker player from Glasgow.
Snooker world rankings 2014/2015: The professional world rankings for all the professional snooker players, who qualified for the 2014–15 season, are listed below. The rankings work as a two-year rolling list. The points for each tournament two years ago are removed, when the corresponding tournament during the current season finishes. The following table contains the rankings, which were used to determine the seedings for certain tournaments.
The European Tour 2014/2015 – Event 1 was a professional minor-ranking snooker tournament that took place between 7–10 August 2014 at the Arena Riga in Riga, Latvia. This was the first professional snooker tournament held in Latvia.
The 2015–16 snooker season was a series of snooker tournaments played between 7 May 2015 and 2 May 2016.
The European Tour 2015/2016 – Event 1 was a professional minor-ranking snooker tournament which took place between 29 July and 2 August 2015 at the Arena Riga in Riga, Latvia.
The 2016–17 snooker season was a series of professional snooker tournaments played between 5 May 2016 and 1 May 2017.
The official 2016/2017 snooker world ranking points for the professional snooker players on the World Snooker Main Tour in the 2016–17 season are based on performances in ranking and minor-ranking tournaments over a two-year rolling period. The rankings at the start of 2016/2017 season are determined by prize money earned in the 2014/2015 and 2015/2016 seasons; starting with this season, the players are re-ranked at the beginning of the current season after removing players relegated at the end of the previous season from the ranking list. As points are accrued from tournaments throughout the current season, the points from the corresponding tournaments from two seasons earlier are dropped. The rankings are used to set the official tournament seedings at various points throughout the season; even though the rankings are officially updated after every tournament carrying ranking status not all the rankings are used as seedings, and only the rankings officially used as seedings are documented below. The total points accumulated by the cut-off dates for the revised seedings are based on all the points up to that date in the 2016/2017 season, all of the points from the 2015/2016 season, and the points from the 2014/2015 season that have not yet been dropped.
The 2017 Kaspersky Riga Masters was a professional ranking snooker tournament that took place between 23 and 25 June 2017 at the Arena Riga in Riga, Latvia. It was the first ranking event of the 2017/2018 season. The tournament was broadcast by Eurosport.
The 2018 Ladbrokes World Grand Prix was a professional ranking snooker tournament, taking place from 19 to 25 February 2018 at the Guild Hall in Preston, England. It was the fifteenth ranking event of the 2017/2018 season.
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 2018 Kaspersky Riga Masters was a professional ranking snooker tournament that took place between 27 and 29 July 2018 at the Arena Riga in Riga, Latvia. It was the first ranking event of the 2018/2019 season.
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 declaration of 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.
The 2020 Players Championship was a professional snooker tournament that took place from 24 February to 1 March 2020 at the Southport Theatre and Convention Centre in Southport, England. It was the 14th ranking event of the 2019–20 snooker season and the second leg of the Coral Series. The tenth edition of the Players Championship, first held in 2011, the event was sponsored by sports betting company Coral, and broadcast on ITV4 in the United Kingdom, and Eurosport across Europe. The event featured 16 participants chosen from players who were the highest earners from the prior 13 ranking tournaments.
Yan Bingtao 
