2016 World Snooker Championship

The 2016 World Snooker Championship (officially the 2016 Betfred World Snooker Championship) was a professional snooker tournament that took place from 16 April to 2 May 2016 at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, England. It was the 40th year that the World Snooker Championship had been held at the venue. The event was the tenth and last event that carried ranking points of the 2015–16 snooker season.

Stuart Bingham was the defending champion, having defeated Shaun Murphy in the 2015 event final. Bingham lost 9–10 against Ali Carter in the first round, falling to the Crucible curse and becoming the 17th first-time champion unable to defend his title at the venue. Alan McManus and Ding Junhui set a record in their semi-final for the most century breaks achieved in a professional match, scoring ten. Ding also set a record for the most centuries by one player in a single World Championship match with seven. Ding defeated McManus to become the first Asian player to reach a World Championship final. In the other semi-final, Englishman Mark Selby and Hongkonger Marco Fu set a record for the longest frame of snooker ever played at the Crucible, at 76 minutes 11 seconds.

After beating Robert Milkins 10–6, Sam Baird 13–11, Kyren Wilson 13–8, and Fu 17–15, Selby defeated Ding 18–14 in the final to claim his second World title, having won the 2014 event previously. A total of 86 century breaks were made at the event, the same number as the previous year; Kyren Wilson made the tournament's highest break of 143. The global audiences for the tournament exceeded 300 million, 210 million viewers in China alone. The afternoon sessions of the final were watched by audiences of 45 million in China, the country's largest audience for a sporting event that year. During the tournament, six-time champion Steve Davis played the last professional match of his 38-year career against Fergal O'Brien in the qualifier and announced his retirement during the first round of the event.

The World Snooker Championship is an annual cue sport tournament and is the official professional world championship of the game of snooker. The sport of snooker was founded in the late 19th century by British Army soldiers stationed in India.

The world championship sees 32 professional players compete in one-on-one snooker matches in a single elimination format, each played over several frames. The 32 players for the event are selected through a mix of the world snooker rankings and pre-tournament qualification rounds. The first world championship was held in 1927 at Camkin's Hall, Birmingham, England, and was won by Joe Davis. Since 1977, the event has been held in the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, England.

As of 2022^[update], Stephen Hendry and Ronnie O’Sullivan are the event's most successful participants in the modern era, having both won the championship seven times. The previous year's championship had been won by England's Stuart Bingham, who defeated Shaun Murphy in the final 18–15. This was Bingham's first championship win. The winner of the 2016 event earned prize money of £330,000, from a total pool of £1.5 million. The event was the tenth and last ranking event of the 2015–2016 season.

The total prize money of the event was raised to £1,500,100 from £1,364,000 the previous year. The breakdown of prize money for this year is shown below:

The prize for a maximum break stood at £20,000.