Who has qualified for 2022 World Snooker Championship? Judd Trump, Ronnie O'Sullivan chase £150,000 bonus, Crucible odds

Updated 17/03/2022 at 07:16 GMT

The qualifiers for the elite eight-man Tour Championship will be settled at the Gibraltar Open later this month with those final two penultimate ranking events of the campaign deciding the top 16 seeds for the World Championship in Sheffield (16 April-2 May). After Judd Trump's victory at the Turkish Masters, there remains plenty of scope for others to qualify for snooker's ultimate event.

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Judd Trump lifted the largest trophy in snooker, in size rather than stature, with a 10-4 victory over Matthew Selt at the inaugural Turkish Masters on Sunday, but it is largesse that matters in the race to qualify for the 46th World Championship in Sheffield.

The Gibraltar Open (24-26 March LIVE on Eurosport) and elite Tour Championship (28 March-3 April), involving the top eight players on the one-year ranking list, will again define the top 16 seeds for the Crucible Theatre – and who will need to endure the mental minefield of qualifiers at the nearby English Institute of Sport (4-13 April).

Former Masters champion Yan Bingtao provisionally holds down the 16th and final spot, but picked up £7,500 from losing 5-4 to Oliver Lines in the last 16 in Turkey and remains at real risk of having to qualify for the sport's biggest event after oddly opting out of travelling to Gibraltar.

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He is £26,000 clear of Ricky Walden in 17th spot, but a rejuvenated Walden has entered Gibraltar entertaining ambitions of qualifying for the Tour Championship in Llandudno a week later. Which brings with it a minimum £20,000 for qualification.

Such happenings would force 22-year-old Yan to draw up a qualifying plan.

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John Higgins occupies the eighth and final spot for the Tour Championship, having so far amassed £144,500, but Shoot Out winner Hossein Vafaei (£130,000) and Walden (£125,500) could overtake him with a run to the final in Gibraltar.

The three-day event is worth a relatively modest £50,000 for the winner and £20,000 for the runner-up with Trump chasing a third straight Gibraltar title at the Europa Point Sports Complex, but there is also serious gold to be mined on the Rock.

The 2019 world champion, 7/2 favourite for a second Crucible title, knows a 24th ranking trophy success will see him collect a £150,000 bonus for the third straight year as victor in the European Series.

11 players could yet challenge his claim for the cash with World No. 2 Ronnie O'Sullivan competing in Gibraltar for the first time before he heads for Llandudno.

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Trump has catapulted himself into the Tour Championship after earning £100,000 from his victory over Selt in Turkey a week after snaring £30,000 for losing 9-5 to Joe Perry in the Welsh Open final.

He will be seeded fourth for the event behind top seed Zhao Xintong, defending champion Neil Robertson and O'Sullivan with Luca Brecel and Mark Williams assured of fifth and sixth spots respectively.

Barry Hawkins, David Gilbert, Kyren Wilson, Jimmy Robertson and European Masters winner Fan Zhengyi would need to win the Gibraltar Open to qualify for the Tour Championship.

But Wilson and Hawkins are already assured of their places on the starting grid for the Crucible with world champion Mark Selby certain to be top seed despite missing Llandudno.

Qualifying for the World Championship is always a frazzled affair, but the competition to join the top 16 seeds looks fiercer than ever with the width of cue tip between some of the leading figures and those on the potting periphery.

Top 16 for World Championship (after Turkish Masters)

1 Mark Selby (Eng) £984,500
2 Ronnie O'Sullivan (Eng) £996,000
3 Judd Trump (Eng) £835,500
4 Neil Robertson (Aus) £768,000
5 Kyren Wilson (Eng) £569,000
6 John Higgins (Sco) £404,000
7 Zhao Xintong (Chn) £382,500
8 Mark Williams (Wal) £353,500
9 Barry Hawkins (Eng) £339,000
10 Shaun Murphy (Eng) £316,000
11 Anthony McGill (Sco) £272,500
12 Stuart Bingham (Eng) £271,000
13 Jack Lisowski (Eng) £262,500
14 Luca Brecel (Bel) £254,000
15 Mark Allen (NI) £233,500
16 Yan Bingtao (Chn) £233,000

Despite only Alex 'Hurricane' Higgins, Terry Griffiths and Shaun Murphy rising to the world crown as qualifiers – Higgins first achieved the feat in 1972 with a 37-32 win over John Spencer at a now-demolished British Legion club in Birmingham – the process can also work well for players with the right mindset in the modern game.

2015 world champion Stuart Bingham strode to the semi-finals last year contributing 17 centuries from both stages to make a mockery of his ranking. He narrowly lost 17-15 to Selby after seeing off Chen Zifan and Luca Brecel in the qualifying before usurping Ding Junhui, Jamie Jones and Anthony McGill at the Crucible.

"Normally, being a top-16 player, you're not playing for two or three weeks coming up to the Worlds so it's hard to get good match practice," he said.

"Winning those two matches definitely helped my confidence."

Some of the players appearing at the English Institute of Sport are themselves snooker institutes.

Perry, Fan and Selt are likely to join starry names such as Ali Carter, Stephen Maguire, Ding Junhui, Graeme Dott, Gary Wilson, Matthew Stevens, Jordan Brown and Martin Gould pursuing the remaining 16 places by negating the onerous qualifying process.

Which offers up the sporting equivalent of purgatory and paradise before the hellish experience of Crucible conquest comes into the frame.