The Data
When the draw of the World Snooker Championship happens, all the qualifiers will be drawn against the sixteen seeded players. The draw is completely random. These draws are something that you cannot fix whatsoever. I think draws are really interesting and it’s amazing how certain seeds seem to get ‘easier’ draws. Do defending champions get harder draws at all?
I have gone back as far as the 2015 World Championship to date. This is mainly because the 2014/2015 season was the first where the tariffs are based on prize money in comparison to points awarded by the governing body. I have looked at all of the numbered seeds the Top 16 players have faced in the opening round of the Crucible during this period. I found out the opposition’s seedings according to Snooker.org.
Then, I collected the average of the seeded qualifiers against each particular seed from the Top 16. I have averaged all seeds participated in each World Championship as well.
The Table
Here is what I found:
| Crucible Seed | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | Average seed / Crucible seed |
| 10 | 58 | 19 | 29 | 37 | 24 | 38 | 27 | 33.14 |
| 1 | 38 | 31 | 45 | 22 | 29 | 25 | 46 | 33.71 |
| 6 | 69 | 22 | 18 | 56 | 35 | 20 | 22 | 34.57 |
| 12 | 21 | 17 | 59 | 30 | 21 | 39 | 58 | 35.00 |
| 14 | 18 | 32 | 51 | 17 | 32 | 74 | 23 | 35.29 |
| 3 | 19 | 30 | 42 | 25 | 66 | 47 | 29 | 36.86 |
| 16 | 32 | 29 | 44 | 64 | 18 | 62 | 35 | 40.57 |
| 5 | 31 | 18 | 63 | 58 | 38 | 28 | 52 | 41.14 |
| 13 | 24 | 24 | 48 | 27 | 91 | 36 | 56 | 43.71 |
| 11 | 42 | 71 | 39 | 68 | 19 | 41 | 32 | 44.57 |
| 7 | 20 | 74 | 32 | 34 | 43 | 65 | 45 | 44.71 |
| 4 | 40 | 28 | 37 | 55 | 52 | 80 | 25 | 45.29 |
| 8 | 68 | 20 | 30 | 51 | 39 | 43 | 69 | 45.71 |
| 15 | 35 | 59 | 24 | 21 | 80 | 78 | 63 | 51.43 |
| 9 | 97 | 57 | 72 | 52 | 28 | 53 | 18 | 53.86 |
| 2 | 80 | 21 | 54 | 18 | 129* | 31 | 49 | 54.57 |
| Average seed / year of WC | 43.25 | 34.50 | 42.94 | 39.69 | 46.50 | 47.50 | 40.56 |
The Results
From this table, it seems that whoever is ranked No. 10 and No. 1 in the world are more likely to get the highest-ranked players. It is interesting that the defending champion happens to get the most difficult draws. On the other hand, the seeds No. 9 and No. 2 tend to get the lower-ranked opponents. Remarkably, only the fifth-seeded player has beaten every opponent over the past 7 years.
You may be wondering they some numbers are highlighted in red. They represented the seeds who have beaten the Top 16 in their opening matches. It may make sense that the tenth, who had the hardest draws over the 7-season period, had the most losses during that time.
What The Data Doesn’t Say
The obvious point to put out is that these seeds don’t tell us the quality of these snooker players. Arguably, the quality has increased massively over the past number of years because of the increased number of tournaments and greater opportunities across the entire world.
For example, Thepchaiya Un-Nooh and Zhao Xintong were seeded just No. 43 and No. 66 respectively in 2019. Un-Nooh was regarded as one of the qualifiers to avoid at that time. Some also believe that amateur James Cahill was better than some of the snooker professionals during that time and since I can’t rank him, I have to put him one place outside the professionals. Jamie Jones was ranked No.69 in 2021 and he was much better than his ranking suggested.
One thing this doesn’t tell us is which players receive the more favourable draws as well. One can look up individually which players have the poorest record of the World Championship.
It would be interesting to find out whether lady luck favours some particular players more than others in the World Championship draws. We will have to see. It’s just fun with numbers at the end of the day.
