The Qualifier everyone wants to avoid

Every player wants to make it to The Crucible without having to qualify, but it's inevitable for the 128 players that ain't inside the Top 16 in the World Ranking.

Few years back if you were within 17th and 32nd position in the Rankings you had only one match to win in the Qualifiers (where all the matches are best of 19 frames), but now it's brutal, it doesn't matter if you're 17th or 128th, you have to come through three qualifying Rounds to make it to the main stage of the World Snooker Championship.

But this year the players have yet another reason to want to avoid the Qualifiers, I think the Qualifiers for this year's World Snooker Championship will be as good - in terms of quality - as any World Championship ever played. It feels like every season the standard of the Tour is improving but this season in particular is special. We've had 8 players (Yan Bingtao, Zhou Yuelong, Thepchaiya Un-Nooh, Ali Carter, Rory McLeod, Kyren Wilson, Martin Gould & Robin Hull) winning tournaments when outside the Top 16, and yet from these 8 only one (Martin Gould) got into the Top 16 after being crowned a Champion.

And if we look for players who made Finals when outside the Top 16 we've got Tom Ford, Tian Pengfei, David Gilbert, Ryan Day, Luca Brecel (x2) and of course Liang Wenbo who made the Final of the 6-Red World Championship and the UK Championship - the 2nd biggest Ranking tournament. And I'm not counting the World Seniors, which for me now that the age limit was reduced to 40 it feels like an European Tour without Selby, Trump and Robertson. World No25 Mark Davis won the World Seniors beating Darren Morgan in the Final.

Other players in form outside the Top 16 are David Grace (UK Championship semi-finalist) and Jamie Jones (Australian Open semi-finalist) which no one would like to draw in Ponds Forge (Arena that hosts the Qualifiers).

There's also players like Graeme Dott, Peter Ebdon and Matthew Stevens that always do well in the World Championship and will fancy a Crucible spot, plus Ding Junhui who will fall off the Top 16 unless he have good runs in the 3 events to be played before the World Snooker Championship (World Grand Prix, PC Grand Finals & China Open). 

These next three events are very important for - other than Ding - Martin Gould, Mark Williams, Stephen Maguire, Michael White, Liang Wenbo and Kyren Wilson who are all directly battling for a Crucible spot and of course there are players bellow them who have potential to win a tournament and breakthrough inside the Top 16.

There's also the extra factor that some players with held potential always upset at the Qualifiers. For example, Pankaj Advani is a great player that currently is out of the Tour but was invited for Ponds Forge and should beat anyone on his day, so should Matthew Selt, Fergal O`Brien, Rod Lawler, Michael Holt, Mark Davis, David Gilbert, Ryan Day and Oliver Lines to name a few.

Ponds Forge

Every year we see debutants at the Crucible, but it'll be extremely difficult this year; Do you think we'll have one? Well make sure you watch the Qualifiers because it's very promising. I'd say Ronnie O`Sullivan and Neil Robertson are slightly above the other players' level but the chance to see a Qualifier winning the World Championship this year is very big. It only happened twice in the past, with Terry Griffiths in 1979 and Shaun Murphy in 2005.

Stephen Maguire is under a lot of trouble, he's out of the PC Grand Final  and will watch Kyren Wilson, Michael White, Liang Wenbo and company making extra points, although it would be no surprise to see the Scottish winning one of the World Grand Prix or the China Open to secure his Crucible spot. You can follow all the action, important Ranking moves from the World Grand Prix and further events through Ronnie O`Sullivan Brasil on Facebook.