Anthony McGill enjoyed the surroundings and atmosphere in which he triumphed at the Coral Shoot Out at Watford Colosseum last night but remained steadfast in his opposition to it being made a ranking tournament.

The 26-year-old Scot followed up his first ranking success at the Indian Open earlier this season by winning the climax to the fast-paced, one-frame event with a 67-19 victory over Xiao Guodong in the final.

McGill’s triumph meant he joined Mark Selby in becoming only the second player to win more than one ranking title this season and the £32,000 top prize means he is likely to qualify automatically for the World Championships in April.

Describing his success as “unbelievable”, McGill said: “I’ve said before it’s a tournament you come to every year and you think you can have a good run but it never works out like that. I can’t believe I’m standing here with the trophy.

“I’ve never won more than one game. I’ve played in six previous Shoot Outs and maybe only won two or three [game] in total, so when I won my second round match I thought that’s happy days.

“I played well the longer it went on and I felt really confident.”

This was the first time the Shoot Out has been staged at the Rickmansworth Road venue and the new champion enjoyed how the table played and the backing he got during the seven games he won, defeating Jack Lisowski, Anthony Hamilton and Shaun Murphy in the latter stages yesterday to reach the final.

McGill said: “I think whenever you take snooker to a theatre kind of building like this the table always plays beautifully. It’s much better than playing in a leisure centre like we do sometimes. But I really like the crowd have come out and supported it. That’s what really makes it.”

But while the Colosseum may have been to McGill’s liking, the same cannot be said of the decision to make the Shoot Out a ranking event this year.

The tournament was extended from three days to four and the field expanded from 64 players to 128 for the new status of the Shoot Out, which sees each match last a maximum of ten minutes with each player allowed up to 15 seconds per shot in the first five minutes and ten for the remainder.

Explaining the change of status, World Snooker chairman Barry Hearn wrote in the introduction to the official programme: “This is the seventh running of the Shoot Out and for the first time ranking list money is on the line. Any event which is open to all tour players should count towards their ranking position. We are working tirelessly to provide a tour which gives everyone the same chance to progress and break into the upper echelons of the sport.

But McGill said: “It shouldn’t be a ranking event. It’s not even snooker rules. You make a foul and you pick the white up. But you’re getting ranking points and it’s going to affect people’s positions and all the rest of it. It would still be a brilliant tournament if it wasn’t and I don’t think a tournament like this should count towards the rankings.”

Asked if he understood the logic behind making it a ranking tournament, McGill responded: “Not really. I’m not sure what the logic is. Maybe it’s to get more players to enter. But quite a number of the top players didn’t enter so I think you’d still get the same sort of field than a non-ranking event.”

While McGill was able to celebrate, it was a second case of what might have been for his opponent, who lost out in the closing stages of the 2015 final to Michael White.

The Chinese player had knocked out the last remaining amateur in the event, Andy Hicks, to reach the final, but his quarter-final victory over David Gilbert did not come without controversy.

Xiao had been leading when he went over the time limit for one shot, but he was not penalised because the referee did not hear the buzzer due to the crowd noise in the auditorium.

There were suggestions the game might be replayed but a statement from World Snooker confirmed the referee and marker did not hear the clock shot beeps due to the noise but “this was condoned as soon as the next stroke was played, as per the rules of snooker”.