Stephen Hendry Totally Explained

Everything about Stephen Hendry totally explained

Stephen Gordon Hendry, MBE (born January 13, 1969 in South Queensferry, Edinburgh) is a Scottish professional snooker player and seven-time World Champion. He spent a record eight consecutive years at no. 1 in the world rankings and was the youngest-ever snooker World Champion, at 21.
Hendry is one of the most successful players in the history of the sport—his World Snooker Association official profile states that he's "generally considered the greatest snooker player ever".

Snooker career

Amateur years (1981-1985)

Hendry started playing snooker in 1981, aged 12. Two years later he won the National U-16 Championship. He also appeared on BBC's Junior version of Pot Black. The following year he won the Scottish Amateur Championship and also became the youngest ever entrant in the World Amateur Championship. In 1985, after retaining the Scottish Amateur Championship, he turned professional. At 16 years and three months old he was youngest ever professional.

Professional career (1986-1988)

In his first season he reached the last 32 in the Mercantile Credit Classic and was the youngest ever Scottish Professional champion. In the next season he retained that title and reached the quarter-finals of both the Grand Prix and World Championship, and the semi-finals of the Mercantile Credit Classic. Hendry and Mike Hallett combined to win that year's World Doubles Championship. In 1987/88 Hendry won his first world ranking titles, the Grand Prix and the British Open. He also claimed three other tournament victories, retaining both the Scottish Professional Championship and the World Doubles Championship (with Hallett), and the Australian Masters. By the end of that season he was ranked world no. 4 and was voted the BBC Scotland Sports Personality of the Year.
No ranking titles came his way the following season, although he did win the New Zealand Masters and also his first Masters at Wembley.

Glory years (1989-1999)

The 1989/1990 season saw the beginning of Hendry's period of dominance. That year he won the UK Championship, Dubai Classic, Asian Open, Scottish Masters, Wembley Masters and his first World Championship. This saw him rise to the summit of the World Rankings at the age of 21. The following season he set a record of five world ranking titles in a season and recorded a hat-trick of Masters. In 1991/92 Hendry regained the World title, adding to the victories in both the Grand Prix and the Welsh Open. He won the Masters, too, and achieved his first competitive 147 break, in the Matchroom League. A year later he retained both his World Championship title and a fifth consecutive Masters crown. The following season he retained the World Championship, narrowly beating Jimmy White 18-17 in the final.
In 1994/95, after being awarded an MBE, he won three ranking events, including another World crown and the UK Championship, both of which were retained the following year. His run of successes continued in 1995/96 with three titles, including the World Championship, where an 18-12 victory in the final against Peter Ebdon saw him equal the achievement of Ray Reardon and Steve Davis by notching up a sixth World crown. In 1997 he won BBC Scotland Sports Personality of the Year award for a second time and added another three ranking titles to his collection, although Ken Doherty denied him a sixth consecutive World championship by defeating the Scot 18-12 in the final.
Hendry's dominant position in snooker appeared to be on the wane, as the only ranking event he won in the 1997/98 season was the Thailand Masters. He also lost his World no. 1 place for the first time since 1990 and was eliminated in the first round of the World Championship, losing heavily to White (4-10). 1998/99 began with an embarrassing 0-9 first-round loss in the UK Championship to unseeded Marcus Campbell. However, a resurgent Hendry won the last two events in the campaign - the Scottish Open and a record seventh World title. After beating Ronnie O'Sullivan 17-14 in their semi-final, he emerged as a convincing 18-11 winner over future double World Champion Mark J. Williams. This is Hendry's last World Championship title. Since then he's won only five titles but has never dropped out of the Top 16 in the rankings.

Recent years (1999-present)

In 1999/2000 he lifted one ranking title, the British Open, where he made the fifth 147 break of his career and the first maximum in a ranking final. By Hendry's high standards the 2000/2001 season was a disappointment, as he failed to win a ranking event for the first time since 1988 season and reached only one final. Still he won the European Open the next season and came close to an eighth World Championship. Having eliminated defending champion O'Sullivan in the semi-finals (17-13), he lost narrowly to Peter Ebdon in the final (17-18). The Welsh Open in 2002/2003 and British Open in 2003/2004 came his way, with his victory in the Malta Cup of 2005 being his most recent ranking success. However, Hendry regained the world no. 1 position in 2005/2006 due to consistency in reaching the latter stages of tournaments without, by his own admission, reproducing his form of old. He is now ranked World number eight. Following a disappointing season in 2007/2008 Hendry unexpectedly reached his 12th semi-final at the World Championships, a new record surpassing Steve Davis' 11. In doing so aged 39 he became the oldest player to reach the semi-finals of the tournament since Terry Griffiths in 1992.

Records

Hendry's other career records include: total ranking titles, consecutive wins of a single tournament, longest consecutive winning streak (in ranking events), most centuries compiled in one match (7), most centuries compiled in one tournament (16), most centuries in one season (53), most years in the top-16 elite of players, most years ranked world no.1, most career centuries and highest total prize money. Until 2007 he held the record for most 147s compiled in competitive play (8), as well as most televised maximums (7), until O'Sullivan equalled the former and broke the latter in late 2007 and took both records from him during the 2008 world championships. He currently jointly holds with Davis the record for the longest unbroken streak as a top-16 player (20 seasons), a record which will be broken on the 6th of May 2007 when Hendry begins his 21st consecutive season as a top 16 player. The record is more remarkable since the lowest Hendry has ranked upon entry to the top 16 is 8th (the top 8 in snooker are considered the best players in the top 16). Hendry has won 65 professional titles (not including his three Scottish Professional titles). This puts him second on the all-time list of professional championships won behind Steve Davis' 73. However Stephen is the all time record holder for ranking titles won, 36, as opposed to Steve Davis' 28. In all, Hendry has won 79 titles (68 professional and 11 amateur).

Playing style

Hendry tends to play at a steady pace. He often uses the now universal tactic of potting the blue with pace and heavy backspin on the white ball to cannon into the pack of reds and develop them for break-building. Aside from his break-building consistency, Hendry's ability at long potting was crucial to his success, as was his knack of potting balls in the middle pocket during a break. Throughout his career he's played very aggressively, more often than not attempting quite difficult pots and trying to break open the reds early in a break rather than waiting until all open reds have been potted. In this way he's compiled more than 700 competitive century breaks. However, as the standard of his break-building and long potting have declined a little, his aggressive instincts have given his opponents more opportunities than used to be the case. Recently however, since working with Chris Henry, the man who coached Peter Ebdon to the 2002 World Championship, Hendry has placed a greater emphasis on his safety game which has been described by Clive Everton during commentary as being better than at any stage during his career.

Personal life

Hendry was brought up in Fife, where he attended Inverkeithing High School. He now lives in the small town of Auchterarder with his wife Mandy, whom he married in 1995, and sons Blaine (born 1996) and Carter (born 2004). He lives close to the Gleneagles and has a single-figure golf handicap. He enjoys poker and has appeared in more than one televised tournament. Hendry is also keenly interested in football, supporting Scottish side Hearts.
When returning to Scotland from the Thailand Open in September 2003, Hendry had his cue broken. The cue, which he'd owned since he was aged 14 and had cost him £40, had been used when winning his 7 world titles. Since the 11 September 2001 attacks, snooker players have been required to put their cues in the holds of aeroplanes, where they're susceptible to damage.
Stephen Hendry was also rated as the greatest player of all time in a book by Luke Williams and Paul Gadsby titled "Master of the Baize". He finished above Joe Davis, Steve Davis, Alex Higgins and Ronnie O'Sullivan who were the others in the author's top five.

Tournament wins

Ranking Tournaments

Tournament	Year
World Championship	1990, 1992–1996, 1999
Rothmans Grand Prix	1987, 1990, 1991
Skoda Grand Prix	1995
British Open	1988, 1991, 1999, 2003
Asian Open	1989, 1990
Dubai Duty Free Classic	1989, 1990, 1993
UK Championship	1989, 1990, 1994–1996
Regal Welsh Open	1992, 1997, 2003
International Open	1993, 1997
Regal Scottish Open	1999
European Open	1994, 1995, 2001
Thailand Masters	1998
Malta Cup	2005

Other Professional Tournaments

Tournament	Year
Scottish Professional Championship	1986–1988
Australian Masters	1987
New Zealand Masters	1988
Masters	1989–1993, 1996
Scottish Masters	1989, 1990, 1995
Pontins Professional	1990
Hong Kong Challenge	1991
Indian Challenge	1991
555 Challenge	1991
European Challenge	1991
Betfred Premier League	1991, 1992, 1994, 1995, 2000, 2004
Irish Masters	1992, 1997, 1999
Malta Grand Prix	1998, 2001
Red Bull Super League	1998
Champions Cup	1999

Other Titles

Tournament	Year
World Doubles	1987 (with Mike Hallett)
World Masters Doubles	1991 (with Mike Hallett)
Scottish Amateur	1984, 1985
National Under-16	1983

Notes and references

Further Information

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