The World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association, the governing body for professional snooker, first published official world rankings for players on the main tour for the 1976–77 season. Before this, the defending champion was seeded first, and the previous year's runner-up second, for each tournament. [1] [2] [3]
For the 1978–79 season, players' performances in the previous three World Snooker Championships (1976, 1977, and 1978) contributed to their points total. For each of the three years, the World Champion was awarded five points, the runner-up received four, losing semi-finalists got three, players eliminated in the quarter-finals gained two, and losers in the last-16 round received a single point. [3] [4] If players were level on points, then those gained in the most recent event determined positioning. If this was still equal, then the losing margin on frames was taken into account. [1]
Ray Reardon retained top place in the rankings from the 1977/1978 listing, with 12 points. Perrie Mans, the 1978 World Championship runner-up, was second, eight places higher than in the previous season's list, on 8 points. [5] Eddie Charlton, who retained third place from the previous year's rankings, and John Spencer, who dropped from second to fourth, also had 8 points. [4] [6] [7] The eight highest-ranked players were placed directly into the last-16 round of the 1979 World Snooker Championship, whilst all other entrants were required to participate in a qualifying competition to produce the eight players to play the exempted seeds. [4]
The professional world rankings for the snooker players in the 1978–79 season are listed below. Points gained in each of the three World Snooker Championships are shown, with the total number of points given in the last column. A "–" symbol indicates that the player did not participate in that year's championship. [2] [4] [lower-alpha 1]
Ranking | Name | 1976 | 1977 | 1978 | Total |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Ray Reardon (WAL) | 5 | 2 | 5 | 12 |
2 | Perrie Mans (RSA) | 3 | 1 | 4 | 8 |
3 | Eddie Charlton (AUS) | 3 | 2 | 3 | 8 |
4 | John Spencer (ENG) | 2 | 5 | 1 | 8 |
5 | Cliff Thorburn (CAN) | 1 | 4 | 2 | 7 |
6 | Fred Davis (ENG) | 2 | 1 | 3 | 6 |
7 | Alex Higgins (NIR) | 4 | 1 | 1 | 6 |
8 | Dennis Taylor (NIR) | 2 | 3 | 1 | 6 |
9 | Graham Miles (ENG) | 1 | 2 | 2 | 5 |
10 | John Pulman (ENG) | 1 | 3 | 1 | 5 |
11 | Patsy Fagan (IRL) | – | 1 | 2 | 3 |
12 | Bill Werbeniuk (CAN) | 1 | – | 2 | 3 |
13 | David Taylor (ENG) | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 |
14 | Doug Mountjoy (WAL) | – | 2 | 1 | 3 |
15 | Willie Thorne (ENG) | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
16 | Jim Meadowcroft (ENG) | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
17 | Rex Williams (ENG) | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 |
18 | Pat Houlihan (ENG) | – | – | 1 | 1 |
19 | John Virgo (ENG) | – | 1 | 0 | 1 |
20 | John Dunning (ENG) | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
21 | Gary Owen (WAL) | 1 | – | – | 1 |
22 | Warren Simpson (AUS) | 0 | – | – | 0 |
23 | Ian Anderson (AUS) | 0 | – | – | 0 |
24 | Marcus Owen (WAL) | 0 | – | – | 0 |
25 | Bernard Bennett (ENG) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
26 | Paddy Morgan (AUS) | 0 | – | 0 | 0 |
Preceded by 1977/1978 | 1978/1979 | Succeeded by 1979/1980 |
Anthony Christian Meo is a retired English snooker player. He won the 1989 British Open by defeating Dean Reynolds 13–6 in the final, and was runner-up to Steve Davis at the 1984 Classic. He won four World Doubles Championship titles, partnering Davis, and the 1983 World Team Classic representing England alongside Davis and Tony Knowles.
Raymond Reardon is a Welsh retired professional snooker player. He turned professional in 1967 aged 35 and dominated the sport in the 1970s, winning the World Snooker Championship six times and more than a dozen other tournaments. Reardon was World Champion in 1970, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976 and 1978, and runner-up in 1982. He won the inaugural Pot Black tournament in 1969, the 1976 Masters and the 1982 Professional Players Tournament.
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John Spencer was an English professional snooker player. One of the most dominant players of the 1970s, he won the World Snooker Championship three times, in 1969, 1971 and 1977. He worked as a snooker commentator for the BBC from 1978 to 1998, and served for 25 years on the board of the sport's governing body, the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA), including a stint as chairman from 1990 until his retirement from the board in 1996.
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.
The World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association, the governing body for professional snooker, first published official world rankings for players on the main tour for the 1976–77 season. Before this, the defending champion was seeded first, and the previous year's runner-up second, for each tournament.
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. The ranking lists 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, and it is updated after every ranking tournament. The world rankings were inaugurated in the 1976–77 season with the point tariffs set by the governing body, but transitioned to a prize money list in the 2014–15 season.
The World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association, the governing body for professional snooker, first published official world rankings for players on the main tour for the 1976–77 season. Before this, the defending champion was seeded first, and the previous year's runner-up second, for each tournament.
The World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA), the governing body for professional snooker, first published official world rankings for players on the main tour for the 1976–77 season. Before this, for each tournament the defending champion was seeded first, and the previous year's runner-up second.
The World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA), the governing body for professional snooker, first published official world rankings for players on the main tour for the 1976–77 season. Before this, for each tournament the defending champion was seeded first, and the previous year's runner-up second.
The World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA), the governing body for professional snooker, first published official world rankings for players on the main tour for the 1976–77 season. Before this, for each tournament the defending champion was seeded first, and the previous year's runner-up second.
The World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA), the governing body for professional snooker, first published official world rankings for players on the main tour for the 1976–77 season. Before this, for each tournament the defending champion was seeded first, and the previous year's runner-up second.
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, with five points for the winner, four for the runner-up, three for losing semi-finalists, two for losing quarter-finalists, and one for losers in the last 16 round.
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