Mark Williams has named his top five snooker players of all time, selflessly omitting himself from the rankings despite claiming three world championships.
07:49, Sat, Feb 15, 2025 Updated: 07:49, Sun, Feb 16, 2025
Mark Williams has named his top five snooker players of all time (Image: Getty)
Mark Williams has said that Ronnie O'Sullivan is the greatest snooker player of all time. The 49-year-old Welsh Potting Machine is widely regarded to be one of the best to ever hit the baize, thanks to his trilogy of World Championships and 26 ranking wins.
However, with a wealth of respect, Williams omitted his own name from his all-time top five when asked for his opinion at the 2024 World Championships at Sheffield's Crucible Theatre. Speaking to Sporting Life's YouTube channel, Williams was asked: "If every World Snooker Champion of all time were in their prime today, who would be in the world's top five in the rankings?"
Without hesitation, Williams responded: "Ronnie [O'Sullivan], [John] Higgins, [Stephen] Hendry, and then I'd probably go [Steve] Davis, and then [Mark] Selby. Yeah, I mean, the people back in the eighties and all that - the seventies - brilliant players. But they wouldn't compete with the standard that's around now."
After turning professional in 1992, Williams has held the top spot in the rankings on three separate occasions. His most successful season to date came in the form of his Triple Crown win in the 2002/03 season, where he bested Ken Doherty to the UK Championship and the World Championship, and dispatched Hendry to claim the Masters.
In 2025, Williams is still going strong and currently sits fifth in the official rankings behind Selby, O'Sullivan, Kyren Wilson and world no.1 Judd Trump. His last tournament win came in the form of November's Champion of Champions, where he beat Guodong Xiao 10-6 in the final.
O'Sullivan, meanwhile, is often considered to be the greatest snooker player of all time, courtesy of his seven World Championships and 41 ranking tournament wins. The now 49-year-old also turned professional in 1992 at the age of 16, won his first ranking title in the form of the UK Masters the following year, and the rest is history.
Ronnie O'Sullivan was a different beast in his prime (Image: Getty)
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Fast forward to 2025, and 'The Rocket' has won a record eight Masters, and eight UK Championships - while also recording a total of 23 triple crowns, the most achieved by a single player in history. And Williams wasn't alone in his assessment of O'Sullivan being the greatest to ever play the game either.
That's because Shaun Murphy, Robert Milkins, Ali Carter and Wilson were all asked the same question by media on the day, and all of the snooker stars put O'Sullivan at the top of their own individual lists.