Neal Foulds delivers his verdict on the top 16 seeds for this year's World Snooker Championship, which begins at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield on Saturday.
Kyren Wilson (1)
- Recent World Championship record: F/SF/R2/R2/W
- Crucible best: 2024 winner
- Season's best: Xi'an Grand Prix, Northern Ireland Open, German Masters, Players Championship winner
Defending champion and for my money, the player of the season.
Kyren has maintained his championship-winning form from last spring, possibly even bettering it by winning four more titles. He beat Judd Trump in three of those finals, and also finished runner-up at the Masters.
That is some effort when you consider all that first-time world champions have to deal with, and Kyren has handled it wonderfully well. He’s been one of the most impressive world champions snooker has ever had.
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He continues to conduct himself impeccably, doing everything that has been asked of him and never turning down interviews or the chance to promote the game. He has been magnificent.
The problem? Greater players than him have fallen to the Crucible Curse year after year, and it’s hard to argue with the weight of history. It’s a big deal, and Kyren has much to overcome.
Nonetheless, he won’t give up the title he cherishes so much without a real fight, and we know his standards have remained high all year.
Judd Trump (2)
- Recent World Championship record: QF/QF/F/R1/QF
- Crucible best: 2019 winner
- Season's best: Shanghai Masters, Saudi Arabia Snooker Masters, UK Championship winner
I’ll be amazed if Judd doesn’t win the World Championship again and add to his brilliant victory in 2019 when his performance in the final against John Higgins was quite remarkable.
To me, he seems sure to become a dual, even multiple world champion.
He continues to win everything else in the game, and you can chalk up three more big titles this season, including another Triple Crown event in the UK Championship.
More than that, Judd has become remarkably consistent, though less so in Sheffield where he has been hot and cold, particularly in the early rounds. He went cold against Jak Jones last year and even back in 2019, survived a huge early scare from Thepchaiya Un-Nooh.
If Judd can navigate the first couple of rounds, which he’s not guaranteed to, he is clearly near the top of any shortlist.
John Higgins (3)
- Recent World Championship record: R2/R2/SF/QF/QF
- Crucible best: x4 winner
- Season's best: World Open, Tour Championship winner
John played fantastic at the Tour Championship, edging out Mark Selby in a wonderful final played to a terrific standard.
It’s been a good season for John full stop, with victory out in Yushan a real turning point following some cruel, heartbreaking defeats over the last few years.
As for Crucible records, there aren’t many better than John's. He’s won the World Championship four times and made it to four more finals, including three in a row.
But the last of those victories came in 2011 and whichever way you slice it, there’s no getting away from the fact that recent Tour Championship winners have a terrible record at the Crucible. Just ask Neil Robertson and Shaun Murphy.
Mark Selby (4)
- Recent World Championship record: SF/W/R2/F/R1
- Crucible best: x4 winner
- Season's best: British Open, Welsh Open winner
This looks to be Mark’s best chance for a while, perhaps even better than in 2023 when he made another final but was always struggling to hold Luca Brecel.
I thought he looked very good at the Tour Championship, and more importantly, full of confidence, which isn’t always the case with Mark despite everything he has achieved in the game.
Forget last year when he was struggling off the table and lost to Joe O’Connor. He really didn’t want to be playing snooker at that point, and it showed in his performance.
But he’s enjoying a strong campaign this time around with a couple of tournament wins, and has spoken about the desire to be more positive and attacking in his play.
When he’s playing well Mark is incredibly hard to beat at the Crucible, but everyone knows that even when he isn’t flying, you’re still going to have to drag him off the table to beat him.
If he can get into the second week, he'll likely take plenty of stopping in his quest for a fifth world title.
Ronnie O’Sullivan (5)
- Recent World Championship record: W/R2/W/QF/QF
- Crucible best: x7 winner
- Season's best: x3 Semi-Finals
We all know what Ronnie is capable of, seven world titles and every other record going tells that story.
But if he were to win world title number eight on the back of no competitive snooker in three months, that would have to be his greatest ever achievement. It might well go down as the biggest story in the history of the World Championship.
The other big question is around age, just as is the case for Messrs Williams and Higgins, and whether someone due to celebrate his 50th birthday this year can win the World Championship.
But if anyone can do it and defy Father Time, it’s Ronnie, and I still give him the best chance of the Class of 92.
By all accounts he’s been putting in the practice with his new cue, and from what we've seen of him this season, it hasn’t been too bad. He lost a good match to Barry Hawkins at York, and with the latter going on to reach the final that week, there was no shame in losing out there.
It’s clearly a difficult one to gauge, and it would be understandable were he to be rusty in his first match, but if he can get a couple of wins under his belt and find some rhythm, we might all start getting excited.
Let’s hope we get to enjoy watching him play again.
Mark Williams (6)
- Recent World Championship record: QF/QF/SF/R2/R1
- Crucible best: x3 winner
- Season's best: Champion of Champions winner
Don’t be fooled by Mark who has been making all the wrong noises in recent weeks about his form and eyesight.
Clearly, his eyesight is a serious matter, but it was only a matter of months ago that he was one pot from winning a big-money event in Saudi Arabia, before he went some way to making amends with victory at the Champion of Champions.
Mark is very good at playing down his chances, and he famously did that in 2018 before winning his third world title. He has surprised us and himself many times before.
As with the other members of the Class of 92, I do question whether someone of his age can stay the course and win the World Championship after 17 days in the Crucible pressure-cooker.
I need to be convinced, but these are no ordinary snooker players.
Luca Brecel (7)
- Recent World Championship record: LQ/LQ/R1/W/R1
- Crucible best: 2023 winner
- Season's best: x1 semi-final
Luca goes under the radar this year, but that was the case in 2023 when nobody was talking about him and he won the tournament with his own style of brilliant and destructive snooker.
Things have gone awry since, and in fact, Luca has a poor record at the Crucible aside from 2023. Of his five Crucible wins, all came that year.
And does Luca still have the desire and that fire burning in his stomach? I hope so because the points from his victory in 2023 will come off his ranking after this tournament and with no recent results of note, that ranking will plummet without a good run this year.
If he can get himself up and running and get through the first round, who knows, and he clearly has a touch of genius about him. The World Championship will be a better one if Luca can show it.
Mark Allen (8)
- Recent World Championship record: R1/R2/R2/SF/R2
- Crucible best: x2 semi-finals
- Season's best: Riyadh Season Snooker Championship
I like Mark’s chances, and I thought he was a little unlucky last year when losing out in a terrific match with John Higgins who made a phenomenal clearance to pinch the deciding frame on the black.
Mark took the defeat superbly, as is always the case, but it must’ve stung given he looked so strong going into the tournament having just lost out to Mark Selby in the semi-finals a year earlier.
For a while now, Mark's game has ticked so many boxes for the World Championship, but just two Crucible semi-finals don't reflect that.
He’s one who for my money is a better player when looking to be positive and take the game on. He’s a brilliant break-builder with his own unique way of doing things, and I don’t want him to lose that.
If Mark can find the right balance between attack and defence, he must have a serious chance coming to Sheffield fresh but still with a big tournament win to his name this season.
Neil Robertson (9)
- Recent World Championship record: QF/QF/R2/R2/DNQ
- Crucible best: 2010 winner
- Season's best: English Open, World Grand Prix winner
Champion in 2010 and if you’d have told me then that he wouldn’t win another world title, I wouldn’t have believed you.
One of snooker's great players when on song and in full flow, but as he’s got that bit older perhaps he’s found it harder to find the right balance to his approach. I like to see Neil taking the game on – that’s when he’s at his best.
He’s clearly in a much better place now than last season, having not even qualified for the Crucible 12 months ago, and two tournament wins would suggest he is back close to his best.
Perhaps he might just run out of steam in the latter stages, as he's done before, but an on-song Roberston would be a definite contender.
Ding Junhui (10)
- Recent World Championship record: R2/R1/R1/R1/R1
- Crucible best: 2016 runner-up
- Season's best: International Championship winner
Ding’s World Championship story is a long one that continues to this day, but I can’t help but think that his best chance was in 2016 when he reached the final as a qualifier.
He lost to Mark Selby 18-14 that year, having fluffed his lines at the start and trailed 6-0. Who knows what might have happened but for that poor start to the match.
Ding has won a tournament this season and he played well at the recent Tour Championship where his game looked in good shape as he beat current world champion Kyren Wilson.
In my heart of hearts, I don’t think he can become world champion now, not in a tournament that lasts for 17 days and tests the fortitude and stamina of a snooker player like no other event does.
I’d dearly love to be wrong, but we may now have to look elsewhere for the first Chinese world champion.
Barry Hawkins (11)
- Recent World Championship record: R2/R2/R1/DNQ/R1
- Crucible best: 2013 runner-up
- Season's best: x2 finals
Barry has had a brilliant campaign, reaching the final of the UK Championship and holding his form very well. He looked in excellent touch at the recent Tour Championship until eventual winner John Higgins got the better of him in the last four.
He’s been something of a standing dish at the World Championship, and went very close to winning the tournament when reaching the final in 2013, where only a peak Ronnie O’Sullivan proved too strong.
He hasn’t won a match here for a while more recently, and Ryan Day beat him in the first round last year, but that wouldn’t worry me too much.
We know he has the pedigree and form; it’s just a question of whether Barry can hold that form at the end of a long season in which he has played lots of snooker.
Zhang Anda (12)
- Recent World Championship record: DNQ/A/DNQ/DNQ/R1
- Crucible best: x4 round one
- Season's best: x2 Finals
Zhang is still yet to win a match at the Crucible, having been here four times before and tasted defeat on each occasion.
He played poorly here last year when losing 10-4 to Jak Jones, and I’m just not sure he likes the environment of the Crucible. We’ve said many times before that this place isn’t for everyone.
He made his Crucible debut against Stephen Hendry back in 2010 and at the time, we thought he’d be back winning many matches in Sheffield.
That hasn’t panned out as expected, and for all he’s a very good player, his form this season comes nowhere close to what he was producing last year.
He has a fair bit to prove, not least that he has a liking for the venue.
Si Jiahui (13)
- Recent World Championship record: DNQ/DNQ/DNQ/SF/R2
- Crucible best: 2023 semi-final
- Season's best: x1 final
Not the easiest to weigh up, in the main because he’s endured such a poor second half of the season, especially in the Players Series where he was badly beaten in two matches.
Si’s game is very open, so when his form does dip, it’s inevitable he will struggle as he doesn’t have a Plan B to fall back on like many others do.
All that said, we were reminded of his serious talent when he played outstandingly well to beat Judd Trump at the Wuhan Open on his way to the final in October, and it was only in 2023 that he enjoyed a dream run to the last four at the Crucible.
Xiao Guodong (14)
- Recent World Championship record: A/DNQ/DNQ/DNQ/DNQ
- Crucible best: 2017 round two
- Season's best: Wuhan Open winner
Xiao has been the revelation of the season. He's always looked like a top 32 player, but it seemed that might be his ceiling.
Now he’s won a big event, the prestigious Wuhan Open, and made the final of another where he just lost out to Mark Williams in the final of the Champion of Champions.
Oddly, Xiao has only ever won one match at the Crucible, which is strange given his game ought to be suited by this event and its longer matches.
As such, he doesn’t boast the pedigree others do, and might be one of the seeded players who is most vulnerable in round one.
Shaun Murphy (15)
- Recent World Championship record: R1/F/R1/R1/R2
- Crucible best: 2005 winner
- Season's best: Masters winner
Shaun is never the easiest to predict, and I thought he had a great chance last year until losing a real grudge match with Stephen Maguire.
There was a spell about three months ago when Shaun looked very good, hot off winning the Masters in January with a performance surely close to the best of his career.
The negatives are two recent heavy defeats in the Players Series, and the prospect of meeting Judd Trump in the second round. That’s a draw neither man would’ve have wanted.
Champion back in 2005, Shaun is always dangerous at the Crucible and never one to discount.
Jak Jones (16)
- Recent World Championship record: DNQ/DNQ/DNQ/QF/F
- Crucible best: 2024 runner-up
- Season's best: x1 quarter-final
Jak exceeded all expectations to reach the final last year, and it seems like he was born to play snooker at the Crucible.
He had reached the quarter-finals 12 months earlier, but last year really was the big moment in his career.
A tough match-player with a solid all-round game, Jak clearly revels on the big stage because away from the World Championship, his career results don’t come anywhere close to matching what he has produced at the Crucible.
He’s someone with many of the ingredients in his game to suggest he can keep doing well here, especially with those good memories in the bank.
Related snooker links
- Richard Mann's World Championship outright preview
- World Championship: Top 16 player profiles
- Where are the young snooker players
- Perfect Snooker Player
- Snooker's GOAT: O'Sullivan by the numbers
- O'Sullivan's Triple Crown timeline
- Watch all the Crucible 147 breaks
- Should the worlds stay at the Crucible?
- History of 147 breaks
- Ronnie O'Sullivan's 147 breaks
- O'Sullivan: One of a kind
- History of snooker's number ones
- Best players never to win a world title
- Crucible memories: Ronnie's finest hour
- Crucible memories: Higgins denies Trump
- Crucible memories: White a People's Champion
- Crucible memories: Johnson stuns Davis
- Crucible memories: Foulds' dream debut
