World Qualifying results so far

[The Statman]

Wasn´t the qualifications changed in the middle of the 90´ties ?

No it wasn't particularly. I think probably there was such an ocean of talent that came through in 1992-3-4, and with only room for 16 seeds, anyone way back in the early qualifiers ten or eleven rounds before the Crucible would have been exceptionally unlikely to come through.

Now, without so many rounds (Liu Chuang today won his fifth – or was it sixth? – match) because of the smaller 'main tour', it is slightly more likely to happen. Still a remarkable achievement, though.