page_title: 2018 World Snooker Championship
section_title: Format
hierarchical_section_title: 2018 World Snooker Championship / Background / Format
caption_attribution_description: English: The Crucible theatre in Sheffield, UK.
context_page_description: The 2018 World Snooker Championship was a professional snooker tournament held from 21 April to 7 May 2018 at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, England. Hosted by the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association, it was the 20th and final ranking event of the 2017/2018 season and the 42nd consecutive time the World Snooker Championship had been held at the venue. The tournament was broadcast by BBC Sport and Eurosport in Europe, and sponsored by betting company Betfred.
  Welsh left-hander Mark Williams won his third world title and 21st ranking title, defeating Scottish professional John Higgins 18–16 in the final. Williams' victory came 15 years after his second world title in 2003; before the start of the season, he had not won a ranking event in the previous six years. In winning the event, Williams received the highest prize money awarded for a snooker event, £425,000 of a total pool of £1,968,000. Aged 43, he is the third oldest winner at the crucible after Ronnie O'Sullivan who was 44 when he won the 2020 World Snooker Championship and Ray Reardon who was 45 when he won the title in 1978.
context_section_description: The 2018 World Snooker Championship was held between 21 April and 7 May 2018 in Sheffield, England. The tournament was the last of twenty rankings events in the 2017/2018 season on the World Snooker Tour. It featured a 32-player main draw that was played at the Crucible Theatre, as well as a 128-player qualifying draw which took place at the English Institute of Sport from 11 to 18 April 2018, finishing three days prior to the start of the main draw. This was the 42nd consecutive year the tournament was held at the Crucible, and the 50th consecutive year the championship was contested through the modern knockout format.
  The top 16 players in the latest world rankings automatically qualified for the main draw as seeded players. Defending champion Mark Selby was automatically seeded 1st overall. The remaining fifteen seeds were allocated based on the latest world rankings (revision 10), which were released following the China Open, the penultimate event of the season. With Selby ranked as the world number 1 entering the event, every player's seed therefore corresponded to their respective world ranking. Matches in the first round of the main draw were played as best of 19 frames. The number of frames needed to win a match increased with each successive round, leading up to the final match which was played as best of 35 frames.
  All 16 non-seeded spots in the main draw were filled with players from the qualifying rounds. The qualifying draw consisted of 128 players, including 113 of the remaining 115 players on the World Snooker Tour, as well as fifteen wildcard places allotted to non-tour players. These invited players included the women's world champion, the European junior champion, and all four semi-finalists at the amateur championship. As with the main draw, half of the participants in the qualifying draw were seeded players. Every player ranked from 17th to 80th was allocated one of 64 seeds in order of their ranking, while all of the other participants were placed randomly into the draw. In order to reach the main draw at the Crucible, players needed to win three best of 19 frame matches.
caption: The main draw of the 2018 tournament was played at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield.
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