15
Most world titles
Davis won every World Championship staged from the inaugural 1927 event until he withdrew after 1946, and never lost a match in the competition.
Snooker's record book spans a century of wildly different conditions, from Joe Davis on heavy nineteenth-century equipment to a modern tour playing on fast cloth with templated pockets and near-identical ball sets. Some marks are era-locked and effectively permanent; others, particularly those involving centuries and maximum breaks, are rewritten every season as scoring standards rise.
The figures below are drawn from records recognised by the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association and its predecessors. Career totals for active players are anchored to the 2024-25 season and continue to move; historical attendance and television figures are given as the most widely accepted estimates.
Records
7 each
Most world titles in the Crucible era
Hendry took his seven between 1990 and 1999, including five in a row; O'Sullivan spread his across 21 years, from 2001 to 2022.
40+
Most ranking titles
O'Sullivan passed 40 ranking titles ahead of Stephen Hendry's 36, having won his first, the UK Championship, in 1993 at 17.
23
Most Triple Crown titles
Seven World Championships, eight UK Championships and eight Masters. Hendry is second on 18, Steve Davis third on 15.
1,200+
Most career century breaks
He became the first player to reach 1,000 career centuries in 2019. Judd Trump followed as the second to the milestone.
15
Most official maximum breaks
No other player has reached a dozen. Stephen Hendry is next with 11, the last of them made at the Crucible in his final World Championship.
5 minutes 8 seconds
Fastest maximum break
Compiled against Mick Price in the first round of the World Championship at the Crucible, at roughly nine seconds a shot including the referee respotting the black.
148
Highest break in professional competition
Made in UK Championship qualifying against Leo Fernandez, using a free ball after a foul, which allows a break to exceed the standard 147 maximum.
21 years 106 days
Youngest world champion
Hendry beat Jimmy White 18-12 in the final. He had already become the youngest ranking-event winner in 1987, a mark O'Sullivan took in 1993.
46
Oldest Crucible world champion
He beat Judd Trump 18-13 for a seventh title. Ray Reardon, champion at 45 in 1978, had held the mark for 44 years.
103
First player to 100 centuries in a season
Robertson reached the milestone at the World Championship. Judd Trump became the second player to make 100 in a season in 2019-20.
123 minutes 41 seconds
Longest frame in professional snooker
The deciding frame of a World Championship qualifier, won by O'Brien 10-9. The frame alone lasted longer than most best-of-nine matches.
18.5 million
Largest television audience
The world final finished 18-17 on the last black at 12:19am, a record audience for BBC2 and for any post-midnight broadcast in Britain.
147
First maximum break at the Crucible
Made against Terry Griffiths in the second round, three years after Thorburn became the first world champion from outside the British Isles in the television age.
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