Neil Robertson moved to equal-sixth on the all-time rating occasion winners’ record together with his success on the Saudi Arabia Snooker Masters on Saturday.
Robertson beat Ronnie O’Sullivan 10-9 in a dramatic battle that ebbed a technique after which the opposite in Jeddah earlier than the Australian emerged with the silverware.
Each Robertson and O’Sullivan are in an unique membership of eight snooker gamers who’ve amassed greater than 20 rating occasion titles.
Certainly, the identical eight opponents would most likely rank often among the many eight greatest gamers of all-time for each followers and pundits.
There isn’t any questioning the very fact there are extra tournaments on the calendar today in comparison with 20 years in the past and additional again, making it a tad simpler for the present batch of stars so as to add to their tallies.
However all eight of those gamers haven’t solely established themselves as prolific winners but in addition champions with unbelievable longevity, with most having achieved their success over the span of a number of many years.
Listed below are the highest eight snooker gamers with essentially the most rating occasion titles (appropriate as of August nineteenth, 2025).
Ronnie O’Sullivan (41)
Ronnie O’Sullivan’s maiden rating success transpired greater than three many years in the past on the 1993 UK Championship when he was simply 17 years outdated.
Other than a few self-imposed hiatuses from the game and a few very transient intervals of poor kind, O’Sullivan has usually remained on the highest echelons ever since.
Amongst his 41 rating titles, seven have come on the World Championship and eight on the UK Championship – underlining his capacity to get the job achieved on the sport’s greatest phases.
O’Sullivan’s most up-to-date victory was in early 2024 when he beat Judd Trump to raise the World Grand Prix crown, and he’s nonetheless difficult for main honours simply shy of his fiftieth birthday as confirmed within the Kingdom.
Stephen Hendry (36)
Stephen Hendry’s profession of rating triumphs on the primary tour spans 18 years, together with his first materialising in 1987 and his final in 2005.
However the bulk of that success occurred in the course of the Nineteen Nineties when he dominated the game and have become arguably the game’s most ruthless winner.
Others could have possessed a contact extra pure expertise, however few if any can match Hendry’s utmost want to outlast his opponent and expertise that profitable feeling.
The Scot counted seven World Championships and 5 UK Championships amongst his greatest rating titles – with all however a kind of gained in the course of the Nineteen Nineties.
John Higgins (33)
Like O’Sullivan, John Higgins has been a daily winner on the World Snooker Tour for greater than three many years and represents one of many sport’s biggest all-round protagonists.
The Wizard of Wishaw, 4 occasions a world champion, gained the 1994 Grand Prix for his first rating title and by no means actually appeared again.
Such is the deserves of his consistency, Higgins spent 29 years as a member of the highest 16 earlier than dropping out of the elite bracket of the rankings in September final 12 months.
His response? Reaching the ultimate of the 2024 British Open earlier than profitable each the World Open and the distinguished Tour Championship in 2025.
Simply shy of his fiftieth birthday, the latter glory made Higgins the oldest winner of a rating title since Ray Reardon in 1982.
Judd Trump (30)
If there’s one participant who appears set to usurp Ronnie O’Sullivan’s report sooner or later sooner or later, it’s Judd Trump.
The Englishman has turn out to be a relentless winner on the primary tour over the past decade or so, and his sheer variety of titles show it.
Not in his favour is a missing haul within the calendar’s most prestigious occasions such because the World (1) and UK Championships (2).
However Trump, who few may critically make arguments towards usually being the very best participant on this planet since late-2018, nonetheless has time on his aspect.
Simply 36 and with doubtlessly a decade or extra on the high but to come back, a goal of fifty snooker rating titles doesn’t appear that far-fetched.
Steve Davis (28)
Steve Davis was the participant who initially set the benchmark together with his ten-year period of dominance within the Nineteen Eighties previous that of Hendry’s within the Nineteen Nineties.
The Nugget’s supremacy got here at a time when the game was simply starting to correctly develop the rating system with far fewer rating occasions to take part in.
That he was nonetheless in a position to stockpile 28 rating crowns is a testomony to only how dominant he was in the course of the interval.
Davis gained his first rating title on the 1981 World Snooker Championship – a match he would win six occasions in the course of the ’80s – together with his final success transpiring on the 1995 Welsh Open.
Mark Williams (26)
It’s humorous to look again to 2017 when many had the very best days of Mark Williams nicely and actually behind him amid a six-year rating occasion drought.
Victory in that 12 months’s Northern Eire Open led to a memorable third World Championship crowning on the Crucible lower than a 12 months later.
Regardless of steadily dismissing his personal price as an all-time nice of the game, Williams has continued to be a frequent presence on the enterprise finish of the most important competitions since.
The Welshman took his whole to 26 with victory on the 2024 Tour Championship, a win that got here 28 years after his first on the 1996 Welsh Open.
Neil Robertson (26)
As has been mentioned already, this time final 12 months Neil Robertson was seemingly on a everlasting slide down the rankings amid a worryingly lengthy drop in kind.
The Thunder from Down Underneath headed to the 2024 Saudi Arabia Snooker Masters chasing a return to the highest 16 having just lately did not qualify for the World Championship.
A 12 months on and Robertson is again to the world quantity three place and £500,000 richer due to what he calls the very best win of his profession.
The 43 year-old Australian, whose maiden rating title was in 2006, can be the reigning English Open and the World Grand Prix champion.
Like Trump, Robertson’s underachieving World Championship report ranks him decrease on the all-time greats record, however that some don’t even fee him as an all-time nice and top-of-the-line there’s ever been is full lunacy.
Mark Selby (24)
At one level in the course of the 2010s, Mark Selby was essentially the most prolific winner on the primary tour and boasted a 17-1 win-loss report in rating occasion finals from 2014 to 2020.
Since then, the Englishman has managed a good fee of 1 rating title per calendar 12 months to maintain his tally ticking over.
Within the mini race between Trump, Robertson, and Selby, the latter had as soon as been in entrance however now languishes behind two of his closest rivals from the fashionable period.
Countering that, although, is a far superior World Championship report that has seen him triumph in Sheffield on 4 events.
Featured picture credit score: WST
