Stephen Hendry vs. Jimmy White WSC 1994 – Instant Classic

A moment in history. A final never forgotten. A black ball that brought the snooker world to its knees. It has been 26 years since the Crucible Classic which gave us a memorable match and a momentous final frame. You can probably picture the events from memory already but for the sake of reminiscing through Instant Classics, whether you’re a fan of the result or not, this is definitely one of them.

The 3-time World Champion at the time, Stephen Hendry contested against recurring rival Jimmy White, in what was his sixth and last WSC final. Hendry has headlined many terrific classics and moments during his career (some of which will be re-hashed in the future), but the 1994 match will always live in memory with most as a (minimum) Top 3 contest.

It was a pretty close fought match throughout with Hendry winning 5-in-a-row and White winning 6-in-a-row during the opening session as White edged it 9-7. Hendry was always on White’s heels as he didn’t let him extend the lead. There was almost always a frame between them until Hendry reached towards the championship end as he led 16-14 and 17-16. This included a critical juncture where Hendry showed remarkable sportsmanship as he corrected referee John Williams on a free ball – a call which could have provided him a 17-15 lead. Nevertheless, White wasn’t about to let his closest chance at gold slip as he forced the decider.

This was White’s closest chance not only because of the score-line, but due to this being the year that Hendry had injured his elbow with a hairline fracture. This would make cushion or awkward bridging shots quite uncomfortable for him. Secondly, White had momentum in his favour as he forced the decider from 17-16 down. Additionally, Hendry was in first and missed.

The decider. Only the second time to happen at the Crucible. After Hendry left a red over the left corner pocket, faltering at 24, White had his shot. Already with 8 points, White was carefully manoeuvring his way amongst the reds. Normally when an opponent misses a pot, the other player comes to the table reinvigorated and somewhat relaxed that they have another chance. You could say that White was feeling the opposite at this point in the match. However, White was doing well – he got the reds to a point where there wasn’t a difficult ball on the table.

The black. On a break of 29, White had a seemingly standard black; which Dennis Taylor mentioned in commentary would probably have a 1 in 30 chance of missing. Whether it was a twitch, the pressure, a distraction or looking too far ahead came one of the most shocking moments in snooker history. This was noted by the very audible disbelief and gasps from the audience as this happened. This is because they all knew, including the commentators, what was going to happen next. And it did happen.

This isn’t to take away anything from what happened next, which is often overshadowed by the nature of the missed black. Hendry masterfully cleared the remainder of the table with a break of 58, demonstrating his middle pocket excellence as well as his nerves of steel. He had just claimed his fourth world title in five years.

Whether you and the live audience favoured the result or not, both players were gracious in victory and defeat, which made their rivalry enjoyable to watch. Out of all White’s final, this was certainly the one that got away. Little did White and the rest of us know, it would be the last time he graced the world final while Hendry continued to take the 90s by storm. It’s a final remembered by all, fans and players alike. And for those new to snooker and wanting recommendations of classic matches to watch, this is definitely an Instant Classic.

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Five Players Who Should Have Won The World Championship (80s/90s Edition)

Much like the Short post I previously wrote looking at five players that perhaps should have won a World Championship (scroll to the bottom to read that), this time I’m going to look at some of the individuals across the 1980s and 90s that got close on certain occasions but weren’t able to strike gold.

Just to clarify, this isn’t to retract from any of the successes that these players were able to achieve in the sport. It’s more to observe which players could have won big if it weren’t for the usual suspects in the 1980s and 90s. In the current era where competition is extremely high, making it challenging to predict a World Championship (or Triple Crown) victor, it can be quite informative to look at these previous decades and see what could have happened.

Doug Mountjoy

UK and Masters Winner, Welsh-native Doug Mountjoy only lacked the WSC to complete his Triple Crown. There was over a decade between his UK and Masters titles but he was close to the mountaintop in 1981 when he reached his only WSC final. Unfortunately for Mountjoy, he was up against a young Steve Davis who was in the infancy of his prosperous career. Mountjoy wasn’t able to reach the later stages of the Worlds following this defeat; only reaching one quarter-final in 1984.

Tony Knowles

Twice a ranking event winner, Tony Knowles had some considerable success at The Crucible during the first half of the 1980s despite not being able to go all the way. He reached the semi-finals on three occasions including 1985 and 86, where he would lose out to the eventual winners of the championship. Although, arguably his most notable accomplishment that is mentioned whenever you hear about Knowles is his hammering of defending champion Davis (10-1) in the first round of the 1982 WSC.

Neal Foulds

Former World No. 3, now commentator, Neal Foulds reached the semi-finals of the Masters on three occasions and the finals of the UK Championship once. His furthest voyage in the WSC came in 1987 where he was stopped by Joe Johnson. Foulds was able to reach the quarter-finals a few times but kept finding himself in sightlines of other champions. Given his deep Triple Crown ventures, it is unfortunate Foulds wasn’t able to etch his name in the trophies.

James Wattana

He’s still an active professional however, James Wattana’s acclaim is primarily associated with his performance in the 1990s. Before O’Sullivan entered, Wattana held the record for the fastest maximum break, at 7 minutes 9 seconds in 1991. Wattana reached The Crucible semi-finals twice, losing to rivals White and Hendry each time. He was able to scrap with the best of them as displayed by his £1 million+ prize winnings and was one of the driving forces in popularising snooker in the eastern hemisphere.

Matthew Stevens

I know this is on the borderline as to whether we can classify Matthew Stevens in this list, but he was reaching Triple Crown finals in the late 1990s and was a professional for years before that. Stevens is one of the players that could fairly hold a little resentment towards the Class of ’92 considering how many Triple Crowns they cost him. The easiest thing is for me to do is show you is Stevens’ record for his first 8 Crucible appearances from 1998-05: 1) quarter-final, 2) quarter-final, 3) final, 4) semi-final, 5) semi-final, 6) round 2 (ignore that), 7) semi-final and 8) final. A personal favourite of mine and I still hold out hope that he’ll complete the Triple Crown!

What do you think of my list? What other players across the 1980s and 90s do you think should be included?

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Looking Back At Snooker History: Tobacco Sponsorships

Spanning decades, snooker was backed and sponsored by members of the tobacco industry. It was reported that up to 70% of revenue generated derived from these sources, which in turn produced tournaments such as the ‘Benson & Hedges Masters’ and ‘Embassy World Championship’ (which lasted for 30 years). For the past 15 years, there has been a shift in the nature of advertising involved in snooker, but are things really that different?

In the 1970s, as Pot Black was rising in popularity (link to Pot Black Short below), prospective sponsors wanted to become more involved with the sport which showcased personas such as Ray Reardon and Alex Higgins. As snooker gained exposure and more importantly, TV coverage, this led to the revolution of tobacco sponsorships being attached to many of the tournaments throughout the season, such as the Welsh/Scottish Open and Irish Masters.

The next 30 years saw a pattern of tobacco sponsorships similar to what we are used to seeing currently with betting companies. You could say that tobacco sponsorships were one of the characteristics of the Golden era of snooker; along with players’ smoking/eating/drinking, shining personalities and large-scale appeal.

However, during the mid-1990s UK legislation forbade tobacco products from being advertised on television. This was then escalated in 1999 when shops and newsagents were also disallowed from advertising these products. It was also known at this time that any kind of tobacco sponsorship among sporting events would cease by 2003. This would affect other sports such as rugby, darts and F1.

Considering how heavily reliant snooker was on the revenue from tobacco sponsorships, the WPBSA appealed to ministers to grant a 3-year extension/buffer period. This was approved on the basis of snooker being a world event and its considerable dependence on this revenue source. Formula 1 was the only other sport that was allowed this extension period. We’re dealing in the millions of £s here and since this was a substantial portion of World Snooker funds, would result in a critical gap in the budget.

Despite WPBSA and World Snooker having extra time to try and arrange their future sponsorship arrangements, the effects of this cut were still felt across the landscape. The WSC prize fund fell from £1.1m in 2005 to just under £900k in 2006; with the winners share dropping by £50,000. They were able to obtain sponsorship for the 2006 WSC from a betting company, although there were a lot of problems arising with some players and their own personal sponsors, who were rivals of this betting company, therefore resulting in a loss of income.

The rest of the decade was a struggle for snooker as there weren’t many ranking events or tournaments to compete in. Some events had to be completely cut due to the lack of available funding and many considered snooker a dying sport. It was held by the sponsorships of betting companies and various retail outlets.

Following the end of tobacco sponsorships most events, namely the Triple Crowns and other UK-based tournaments, were funded by numerous betting companies. This is still prevalent to current day however, given the nature of this industry, it wouldn’t be surprising if government legislation causes it to suffer a similar fate to its predecessor. And if it does, I hope the WST has something planned and isn’t too overly reliant on this source of income.

I’m certain this isn’t the case as WST would have learned from the experience with tobacco sponsorships. And it mainly seems like something that is evident in the UK and some European tournaments. Most tournaments taking place in China seem to have sponsors that lean away from these industries i.e. financial institutions. Although, even though long-term deals are generally agreed with these companies I do hope that WST aim to attain sponsors that are more in line with the class that is carried with the sport.

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Mark Selby’s Impressive Run as World No. 1

Steve Davis remained at No. 1 for 7 consecutive seasons in the 1980s and Stephen Hendry for 8 seasons in the 1990s. It’s a relatively safe assessment in saying that competition has ramped up as time goes on, which is why it’s such an impressive (and sometimes unnoticed) accomplishment when Mark Selby was able to match Davis’ performance from 2012-19.

Firstly this should be taken with a grain of salt. And by ‘grain’, I mean a literal grain because there isn’t anything that can be taken away from this achievement. Selby’s run wasn’t a continuous sailing at the No. 1 position. Partway through this period he did temporarily get overtaken in the rankings but by the end of the season had reclaimed his top position. This is why most hear about him holding No. 1 for over 4 years which refers to him never losing first place at any point until it was recently toppled by O’Sullivan last season.

This kind of run at No. 1 hasn’t come close to being replicated since Hendry and this includes the Class of ’92. Given that they were each other’s main competition while other talents were still emerging is perhaps the reason they weren’t able to achieve this. However, Selby managed to break through all this, in a period where the Class of ’92 were winning World Championships and establish a legacy that will categorise him with the greats.

Even though the ranking system has been altered over the years, one fundamental factor the remains true is that if you perform well, this will be reflected in the rankings. Selby’s Triple Crown performance from 2014-17 would have had him at World No. 1 regardless of the ranking system in place. And due to the 2 year money rolling system, is what allowed him to stay at the top of the rankings for so long. Considering how the rankings used to only be updated once a season but now is effectively updated after every tournament made Selby’s accomplishment even more impressive, as his position could have changed at any point.

If we describe periods of snooker in eras, we have the Davis era, Hendry era, the Class of ’92 era (which is still ongoing) but then I like to think the Selby era rose next. Not necessarily because Selby dominated in a way those before him did, but he certainly paved the way for the arrival of newer competition in players like Robertson, Ding and Trump. I guess you could call it the Competition era.

Actually, Selby did kind of dominate like Davis and Hendry did; 3 WSC’s in 4 years – something not done since Hendry. During this period, he was able to win 5 ranking events in a single season – tying Hendry, O’Sullivan and Ding. Higgins referred to Selby as the modern day Steve Davis after their final in 2017, which I don’t think is too far off. It took one relatively poor season and a couple of ranking climbers like O’Sullivan and Trump to finally overthrow the reign Selby had held for so long.

There are some snooker fans who are distasteful towards Selby and his style of play which is perhaps one of the reasons why this remarkable feat doesn’t often get the attention it should. Personally, I love watching Selby play because of his brilliant snooker brain and ability to navigate his way around a table. Realistically, Selby is only 3 or 4 good seasons away from being able to match the likes of the Trinity (Davis/Hendry/O’Sullivan) and I think he is a player who will be able stand the test of time long enough to try and make this happen.

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