Former world championship finalist Barry Hawkins has publicly questioned whether the Paul Hunter Classic should be classed as one of snooker’s ‘major ‘ranking events.

The world number seven star believes a long list of other players should have more major ranking titles to their name given the fact that the former ‘minor’ event has upgraded to full ranking event status in recent years.

Between 2010 and 2015 the Paul Hunter Classic – won this weekend by Kyren Wilson – was was one of several Players Tour Championship (PTC) minor ranking events played across the season. Since 2016 the event has been upgraded to major ranking status after the PTC series was dropped off the calendar by snooker bosses.

Hawkins said the winners of the former Players Tour Championship (PTC) tournaments within this time period should have full ranking titles to their name, given the upgrade to the Paul Hunter Classic.

Hawkins, who reached the final of the 2013 World Championship, took to Twitter to make his point.

He tweeted: “Why are these comps being classed as full ranking event wins?!! Means a lot of players who have won PTC’s in the past don’t have “Ranking Wins” added to their total.

“For example @hitmanholt (Michael Holt) should have 2 ranking wins to his name!!”

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World champion Mark Williams retweeted Hawkins’ tweet and made the point that his previous PTC wins would not class as major ranking events wins in his own tally of achievements.

Williams said: “Correct bazza (Barry), there’s loads have (of) people that have won ranking comps now.”

According to Barry Hawkins, these are the players who should have more ranking event victories given their PTC wins between 2010 and 2016.

Mark Williams

Mark Selby

Tom Ford

Barry Pinches

Judd Trump

Shaun Murphy

Ding Junhui

Dominic Dale

Marcus Campbell

Stephen Lee

John Higgins

Michael Holt

Ronnie O’Sullivan

Ben Woollaston

Andrew Higginson

Neil Robertson

Stephen Maguire

Stuart Bingham

Martin Gould

Rod Lawler

Mark Allen

Joe Perry

Ricky Walden

Ju Reti

Liang Wenbo

Barry Hawkins

Ali Carter

Rory McLeod

Marco Fu