Mark Selby
Alex Higgins
Stat by stat
Bars are scaled to the leader in this list.
The verdict
Mark Selby leads 4 of 4 categories. Our all-time ranking places Mark Selby at #7 and Alex Higgins at #11.
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The case for Mark Selby
The hardest man in modern snooker to beat over a long match. Selby has four world titles (2014, 2016, 2017, 2021) from six finals, more than 20 ranking titles, and eight Triple Crown titles including the 2012 UK Championship and three Masters (2008, 2010, 2013). He has passed 800 career centuries. His reputation rests on attrition: a safety game good enough to strangle opponents for whole sessions, an unusual willingness to play a frame out over an hour, and a recovery rate from behind that has produced repeated Crucible comebacks, most notably from 10-4 down to beat Ronnie O'Sullivan in the 2014 final. The caricature of him as purely defensive is unfair — in the 2023 world final against Luca Brecel he made the first maximum break ever compiled in a World Championship final. Known as the Jester from Leicester, he has spent long spells as world number one across three separate periods.
The case for Alex Higgins
The player whose record understates his importance more than anyone's. Higgins won the world title in 1972 at 22, then the youngest champion, having qualified from the amateur ranks in his first professional season, and won it again a decade later in 1982, when he called his wife and daughter to the table in tears — the most replayed image in the sport. He reached four world finals, won the UK Championship in 1983 and the Masters in 1978 and 1981, giving him five Triple Crown titles. The 69 break he made against Jimmy White from a hopeless position in the 1982 semi-final is still cited as the finest clearance under pressure ever played. Nicknamed Hurricane for his speed, he brought crowds and controversy in equal measure and made snooker a spectacle rather than a pastime, at enormous personal cost. He died in 2010 at 61.