YEAR 
The Japanese veteran Mitsuru Kōno failed to win the final of the World Championships back in 1967. Ten years later, he finally won the title and deservedly became the World Ranking leader. The highest-ranked European of 1977 was the Yugoslav star Dragutin Šurbek, who also won a silver medal at the Europe Top 12 tournament.
TOP 30 PLAYERS IN THE WORLD RANKING
#
1
2
3
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5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
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28
29
30
Player
Mitsuru Kōno
Guo Yuehua
Liang Geliang
Huang Liang
Dragutin Šurbek
Gabor Gergely
Tibor Klampar
Stellan Bengtsson
Milan Orlowski
Wang Jianqiang
Kjell Johansson
Wilfried Lieck
Jacques Secretin
Patrick Birocheau
Norio Takashima
Antun Stipančic
Desmond Douglas
Stanislav Gomozkov
Christian Martin
Istvan Jonyer
Anatoly Strokatov
Denis Neale
Sarkis Sarhayan
Jochen Leiß
Masahiro Maehara
Tetsuo Inoue
Jaroslav Kunz
Li Kuang-tsu
Lu Qiwei
Tokio Tasaka
N
WC
1/4
1/4
1/4
1/4
R16
R16
R16
R16
R16
R16
R16
R16
R32
R32
R32
R32
R32
R32
R32
R32
R32
R32
R32
R32
x
R32
E12
x
x
x
x
5th
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
8th
x
x
x
4th
6th
x
7th
11th
x
x
10th
x
x
x
PRO TOUR
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
Description
N – Nationality WC – World Championsip E12 – Europe Top 12 & other flags – Pro Tour events
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