All-time ranking list

I've added Stephen Hendry's ranking timeline

Someone should send this to Steven. He might start taking his comeback seriously.

Such a pleasant surprise to see Steve top this list, especially as there are very few records he’s held onto in the intervening years. However, I know others will say it makes a mockery of the list given that Steve generally isn’t considered amongst the GOAT debates these days. It’s obviously a reminder of how dominant he was back in the 80’s but also reminds us that he was still holding his own well into the 90’s as well. I doubt, for instance, that he would have ended up in top spot had he not enjoyed that resurgence around 1992-94 that saw him performing better than Hendy again for a brief spell and perhaps playing better than he himself had at any other point in his career. That often gets forgotten about because he didn’t add to his World Championship tally at the time and because he failed to regain the official World number 1 spot as well (despite briefly getting back on top of the provisional rankings).

And maybe he shouldn’t be dismissed so easily from the GOAT debate as he has been. Ok, so he the general standard was lower at the time and he didn’t make anywhere near as many centuries as the current crop. He was also a little more vulnerable in the very highest pressure situations but he was still deadly and much better than any other player of his generation, which surely remains one of the greatest measures of success.

The one record he does still hold onto as well AFAIK is winning more titles than anyone else ever has, which is another great barometer of success, particularly as there were less tournaments to contend for in his time.

p.s. the above is now edited to incorporate spaces at the request of the grammar Police!

Dude:



Exists for a reason.

We have to ration our use of the Enter button because Hendry_Fan takes up so much of the quota.

Iranu wrote:We have to ration our use of the Enter button because Hendry_Fan takes up so much of the quota.

All-time rank 1
Name: Steve Davis
d.o.b. 22/08/1957
Place of birth: London, England
Years as professional: 1978 - 2016

All-time ranking points: 466412

Number of days ranked: 13315
3650-day ranking range: 1-3
Highest rank: 1
Days at highest rank: 2873 (21/04/1981 - 16/05/1982) | 09/10/1983 - 21/10/1983 | 15/01/1984 - 21/10/1990)
Age at highest rank: 23-24 | 26-33
Full ranking events played: 249
Minor ranking events played: 35
First event: 1979 World Championship (aged 21)
Last event: 2016 World Championship (aged 58)
Best ranking finish: Winner x28 - 1981 World Championship | 1983 World Championship | 1983 International Open | 1984 Classic | 1984 World Championship | 1984 International Open |1984 UK Championship | 1985 Grand Prix | 1985 UK Championship |1986 British Open | 1986 UK Championship |1987 Classic | 1987 World Championship | 1987 International Open | 1987 UK Championship | 1988 Classic | 1988 World Championship | 1988 International Open |1988 Grand Prix |1989 World Championship |1989 International Open | 1989 Grand Prix | 1992 Classic |1992 Asian Open | 1993 European Open | 1993 British Open | 1994 Welsh Open |1995 Welsh Open

Best three events by rankings revisit points:
1. 1831 - 1981 World Championship
L24 w 10-8 v Jimmy White
L16 w 13-8 v Alex Higgins
QF w 13-9 v Terry Griffiths
SF w 16-10 v Cliff Thorburn
F w 18-12 v Doug Mountjoy

2= 1677 - 1987 World Championship
L32 w 10-7 v Warren King
L16 w 13-4 v Ray Reardon
QF w 13-5 v Terry Griffiths
SF w 16-11 v Jimmy White
F w 18-14 v Joe Johnson

2= 1677 - 1989 World Championship
L32 w 10-5 v Steve Newbury
L16 w 13-3 v Steve Duggan
QF w 13-3 v Mike Hallett
SF w 16-9 v Stephen Hendry
F w 18-3 v John Parrott

Steve Davis ranking timeline (ages 54-58 cut off)

So the top spot all boiled down to 130 points in the end. Incredible really when you consider Davis & Hendry had close to half-a-million points each. Ronnie, Higgins, Selby and Trump are not too far behind, though, so I suspect one of them will take over at some point in the not too distant future.

Massive thanks for all your efforts with this Chengdufan, it's been the first thing I've checked on my phone every morning for about six months so not sure what I'm going to do with myself now! Would be grateful if you could post the top 200 in an easy to copy & paste format (i.e. just players & positions ideally) and ongoing tournament-by-tournament updates would be great too to keep the list on everyone's radar.

Phenomenal work. What a result for Davis!

gmg wrote:Such a pleasant surprise to see Steve top this list, especially as there are very few records he’s held onto in the intervening years. However, I know others will say it makes a mockery of the list given that Steve generally isn’t considered amongst the GOAT debates these days. It’s obviously a reminder of how dominant he was back in the 80’s but also reminds us that he was still holding his own well into the 90’s as well. I doubt, for instance, that he would have ended up in top spot had he not enjoyed that resurgence around 1992-94 that saw him performing better than Hendy again for a brief spell and perhaps playing better than he himself had at any other point in his career. That often gets forgotten about because he didn’t add to his World Championship tally at the time and because he failed to regain the official World number 1 spot as well (despite briefly getting back on top of the provisional rankings).

And maybe he shouldn’t be dismissed so easily from the GOAT debate as he has been. Ok, so he the general standard was lower at the time and he didn’t make anywhere near as many centuries as the current crop. He was also a little more vulnerable in the very highest pressure situations but he was still deadly and much better than any other player of his generation, which surely remains one of the greatest measures of success.

The one record he does still hold onto as well AFAIK is winning more titles than anyone else ever has, which is another great barometer of success, particularly as there were less tournaments to contend for in his time.

p.s. the above is now edited to incorporate spaces at the request of the grammar Police!

He absolutely is considered in the GOAT debate. In fact in my opinion only three players can really have been said to have revolutionised the game, Davis, Hendry and O'S and the goat is one of those, in whatever order people choose to put them in.

Davis was revolutionary in terms of the professionalism he brought to the sport as well as pushing the standard up way beyond anything that had gone before. Also a level of dominance never before seen.

He put building blocks in place that all subsequent players have built upon.

Here is the current top 200:

1 Steve Davis
2 Stephen Hendry
3 Ronnie O'Sullivan
4 John Higgins
5 Mark Selby
6 Judd Trump
7 Jimmy White
8 Mark Williams
9 Ray Reardon
10 Cliff Thorburn
11 Neil Robertson
12 John Parrott
13 Shaun Murphy
14 Alex Higgins
15 Ken Doherty
16 Ding Junhui
17 Dennis Taylor
18 Eddie Charlton
19 Peter Ebdon
20 Terry Griffiths
21 Stephen Maguire
22 Matthew Stevens
23 Mark Allen
24 Stephen Lee
25 Alan McManus
26 Barry Hawkins
27 Doug Mountjoy
28 Willie Thorne
29 Marco Fu
30 Ali Carter
31 Stuart Bingham
32 Tony Knowles
33 Graeme Dott
34 John Spencer
35 James Wattana
36 Neal Foulds
37 Nigel Bond
38 Bill Werbeniuk
39 John Virgo
40 David Taylor
41 Joe Perry
42 Ryan Day
43 Rex Williams
44 Joe Swail
45 Paul Hunter
46 Joe Johnson
47 Dave Harold
48 Kirk Stevens
49 Tony Meo
50 Ricky Walden
51 Perrie Mans
52 Anthony Hamilton
53 Mark King
54 Mike Hallett
55 Graham Miles
56 Gary Wilkinson
57 Darren Morgan
58 Dean Reynolds
59 Liang Wenbo
60 Alain Robidoux
61 Jim Meadowcroft
62 Martin Gould
63 Mark Davis
64 Fergal O'Brien
65 Fred Davis
66 Tony Drago
67 Silvino Francisco
68 John Dunning
69 Dominic Dale
70 Michael Holt
71 Robert Milkins
72 Drew Henry
73 Steve James
74 David Gilbert
75 Andy Hicks
76 Martin Clark
77 Chris Small
78 Tom Ford
79 David Roe
80 Ian McCulloch
81 Tony Jones
82 Dene O'Kane
83 Jack Lisowski
84 Anthony McGill
85 Kyren Wilson
86 Xiao Guodong
87 Cliff Wilson
88 Danny Fowler
89 Jim Wych
90 David Gray
91 Andrew Higginson
92 Warren King
93 Wayne Jones
94 Ben Woollaston
95 Gerard Greene
96 Barry Pinches
97 Ray Edmonds
98 Marcus Campbell
99 Peter Francisco
100 Rod Lawler
101 Michael Judge
102 Mark Bennett
103 Billy Snaddon
104 Jamie Burnett
105 Patsy Fagan
106 Tony Chappel
107 Jamie Cope
108 Luca Brecel
109 Matthew Selt
110 Brian Morgan
111 Steve Newbury
112 Michael White
113 Eugene Hughes
114 Paul Davies
115 Quinten Hann
116 Jimmy Robertson
117 Kurt Maflin
118 Rory McLeod
119 Jamie Jones
120 Jason Ferguson
121 Mick Price
122 Dave Finbow
123 John Campbell
124 Thepchaiya Un-Nooh
125 Gary Wilson
126 Mark Joyce
127 Stuart Pettman
128 Mike Dunn
129 Les Dodd
130 Adrian Gunnell
131 Tian Pengfei
132 Anthony Davies
133 Eddie Sinclair
134 Dave Martin
135 Jimmy Michie
136 Bob Chaperon
137 John Pulman
138 Patrick Wallace
139 Mario Morra
140 Alfie Burden
141 Jonathan Birch
142 Terry Murphy
143 Lee Walker
144 Li Hang
145 Murdo MacLeod
146 Mark Johnston-Allen
147 Peter Lines
148 Paddy Morgan
149 Jackie Rea
150 Shokat Ali
151 Robin Hull
152 Pat Houlihan
153 Nigel Gilbert
154 Colin Roscoe
155 Jason Prince
156 Nick Dyson
157 Mark Wildman
158 Euan Henderson
159 Scott Donaldson
160 Paul Medati
161 Liam Highfield
162 Steve Duggan
163 Stuart Carrington
164 Gary Owen
165 Zhou Yuelong
166 Robbie Williams
167 Tommy Murphy
168 Nick Walker
169 Sean Storey
170 Nick Terry
171 Matthew Couch
172 Jack McLaughlin
173 Zhang Anda
174 Sam Baird
175 Paul Wykes
176 Daniel Wells
177 Roy Andrewartha
178 Bjorn Haneveer
179 Andrew Norman
180 Liu Song
181 Barry West
182 Yan Bingtao
183 Zhao Xintong
184 Bradley Jones
185 Noppon Saengkham
186 David Morris
187 Bob Harris
188 Bill Oliver
189 Ian Burns
190 Leo Fernandez
191 Warren Simpson
192 Paddy Browne
193 Cao Yupeng
194 Yu Delu
195 Joe Delaney
196 Chris Wakelin
197 David Grace
198 Marcel Gauvreau
199 Craig Steadman
200 Martin O'Donnell

Great work, chengdufan.

I really enjoyed my daily visits to this thread.

And a well done from me as well.

Juddernaut88 wrote:Dammmmn Hendry number 2

Hendry was WN1 for 8 years running, I'm even more shocked than you are.

Davis was further ahead of his nearest rivals at his peak than Hendry was.

We all applaud the greatest snooker player of all ranking time:



A thoroughly deserving winner.

LDS wrote:We all applaud the greatest snooker player of all ranking time:



A thoroughly deserving winner.

My eyes! I can't look away.

Well done Steve. Suppose he could’ve been even further ahead but most of his many titles between 1980 and 83 were non-ranking.

Awesome work Chengdufan. Really enjoyed the daily updates.

Chengdufan is the best

Awesome thread from start to finish Chengdufan.

However am struggling to make sense of the number of days ranked number one. The top 20 have spent almost 50 years ranked one between them yet didn't the rankings begin in 1974? Where am I going wrong?

gninnur karona wrote:Awesome thread from start to finish Chengdufan.

However am struggling to make sense of the number of days ranked number one. The top 20 have spent almost 50 years ranked one between them yet didn't the rankings begin in 1974? Where am I going wrong?

It's now the year 2022, almost 50 years since 1974. Or, more precisely, 17510 days.

chengdufan wrote:

gninnur karona wrote:Awesome thread from start to finish Chengdufan.

However am struggling to make sense of the number of days ranked number one. The top 20 have spent almost 50 years ranked one between them yet didn't the rankings begin in 1974? Where am I going wrong?

It's now the year 2022, almost 50 years since 1974. Or, more precisely, 17510 days.

Yes but you're declaring your top 20 as having been ranked number one for 18185 days.

gninnur karona wrote:

chengdufan wrote:

gninnur karona wrote:Awesome thread from start to finish Chengdufan.

However am struggling to make sense of the number of days ranked number one. The top 20 have spent almost 50 years ranked one between them yet didn't the rankings begin in 1974? Where am I going wrong?

It's now the year 2022, almost 50 years since 1974. Or, more precisely, 17510 days.

Yes but you're declaring your top 20 as having been ranked number one for 18185 days.

I checked the spreadsheet this morning and everything was in order, so it's most likely a typo on this thread. I'll have a look into it when I get home.
I must say, it's outstandingly impressive if you've found a typo in the numbers!

I've checked the numbers in this thread and they seem to be accurate, adding up to 17510.
I wonder if in your calculations you've included players who got no higher than second?

18 players have been ranked number 1 at some point:
S Davis 2873
Hendry 2732
Ronnie 2045
J Higgins 1515
Selby 1814
Trump 1392
White 315
Williams 1098
Reardon 1816
Robertson 364
Murphy 35
Alex 351
Ding 85
Ebdon 56
Griffiths 373
Knowles 246
Dott 36
Spencer 364

Would be interesting to see a few more stats related to the list too Chengdufan along the lines of the Crucible Almanace. Oldest/ youngest number 1's that sorta thing.