Tuesday 5 May 2009

World Championship Higgins wins title

John Higgins 18 - 9 Shaun Murphy.

Well done to John Higgins who won his third World Snooker Championship tonight. He beat Shaun Murphy by a more than comfortable 18 frames to 9. He now becomes only the fourth player to win three or more world titles at the Crucible. The others are Steve Davis (6), Stephen Hendry (7) and Ronnie O’Sullivan (3).

Higgins also won the top prize of a massive £250,000. His other World Championship wins came in 1998 and 2007. He is also the oldest player to lift the trophy since Dennis Taylor in the 1985 epic final.

At the end of the match, even Steve Davis conceded that Higgins was snookers greatest all round player. However, although Higgins was truly brilliant this year and is in the top four players ever, I personally feel that Steve Davis is still the greatest all rounder.

Higgins had many tough matches on his way to his win this year, with two 13-12 wins over Jamie Cope and Mark Selby and Mark Allen marking a final surge against him in the semis.

Higgins is now back up to number four in the world rankings, although I think the two best players over recent years are John and Ronnie.

He can be very proud of this win, as some of his contemporaries have had trouble keeping up, like Matthew Stevens and Mark Williams. This year’s World Championship has shown the next generation coming through with the likes of Neil Robertson and Mark Allen.

The next few years will prove interesting with many new players coming through, with some from China. I hope John can win a fourth world title soon and dominate the game for the next 2 or 3 years.

Saturday 2 May 2009

World Championship Allen & Higgins win

Here are the quarter final results of the World Snooker Championship from the Crucible in Sheffield.

Mark Allen 13-11 Ryan Day

John Higgins 13-12 Mark Selby

Shaun Murphy 13-11 Stephen Hendry

Neil Robertson 13-8 Stephen Maguire

Snooker History

The game is generally regarded to have originated in the latter half of the 19th century. Billiards had been a popular activity amongst British Army officers stationed in India, and variations on the more traditional billiard games were devised.

One variation, devised in the officers' mess in Jabalpur during 1874 or 1875, was to add coloured balls in addition to the reds and black which were used for pyramid pool and life pool. The word snooker also has military origins, being a slang term for first-year cadets or inexperienced personnel.

One version of events states that Colonel Sir Neville Chamberlain of the Devonshire regiment was playing this new game when his opponent failed to pot a ball and Chamberlain called him a snooker. It thus became attached to the billiards game now bearing its name as inexperienced players were labelled as snookers.

The game of snooker grew in the latter half of the 19th century and the early 20th century. By 1927, the first World Snooker Championship had been organised by Joe Davis. As a professional English billiards and snooker player, he moved the game from a pastime activity into a more professional sphere.

Joe Davis won every world championship until 1946 when he retired. The game went into a decline through the 1950s and 1960s with little interest generated outside of those who played. Things saw some improvement when in 1969, when

David Attenborough who was then a top official of the BBC, commissioned the snooker tournament Pot Black to demonstrate the potential of colour television, with the green table and multi-coloured balls being ideal for showing off the advantages of colour broadcasting.

The TV series became a ratings success and was for a time the second most popular show on BBC Two. Interest in the game increased and the 1978 World Championship was the first to be fully televised. The game quickly became a mainstream sport in the UK, Ireland and much of the Commonwealth and has enjoyed much success in the last 30 years, with most of the ranking tournaments being televised.

In 1985 a total of 18.5 million viewers watched the concluding frame of the world championship final between Dennis Taylor and Steve Davis.

Ronnie O'Sullivan wins The Masters 2009.

World Snooker Champions

World Snooker Champion 1977 - John Spencer
World Snooker Champion 1978 - Ray Reardon
World Snooker Champion 1979 - Terry Griffiths
World Snooker Champion 1980 - Cliff Thorburn
World Snooker Champion 1981 - Steve Davis
World Snooker Champion 1982 - Alex Higgins
World Snooker Champion 1983 - Steve Davis
World Snooker Champion 1984 - Steve Davis
World Snooker Champion 1985 - Dennis Taylor
World Snooker Champion 1986 - Joe Johnson
World Snooker Champion 1987 - Steve Davis
World Snooker Champion 1988 - Steve Davis
World Snooker Champion 1989 - Steve Davis
World Snooker Champion 1990 - Stephen Hendry
World Snooker Champion 1991 - John Parrott
World Snooker Champion 1992 to 1996 - Stephen Hendry
World Snooker Champion 1997 - Ken Doherty
World Snooker Champion 1998 - John Higgins
World Snooker Champion 1999 - Stephen Hendry
World Snooker Champion 2000 - Mark Williams
World Snooker Champion 2001 - Ronnie O'Sullivan
World Snooker Champion 2002 - Peter Ebdon
World Snooker Champion 2003 - Mark Williams
World Snooker Champion 2004 - Ronnie O'Sullivan
World Snooker Champion 2005 - Shaun Murphy
World Snooker Champion 2006 - Graeme Dott
World Snooker Champion 2007 - John Higgins
World Snooker Champion 2008 - Ronnie O'Sullivan
World Snooker Champion 2009 - John Higgins
World Snooker Champion 2010 - Neil Robertson
World Snooker Champion 2011 - John Higgins
World Snooker Champion 2012 - Ronnie O'Sullivan