Stephen Hendry

Stephen Hendry (born January 13, 1969, Edinburgh, Scotland) is a Scottish snooker player who won a record seven world titles and dominated the game throughout the 1990s.

In 1984, at age 15, Hendry became the youngest Scottish amateur snooker champion in history. He turned professional the following year, and when he won the Grand Prix in 1987, he became the youngest player to win a tournament. At the end of the 1989–90 season, Hendry, at 21 years 106 days, topped Jimmy White 18–12 to become the youngest world champion ever. He claimed the number one ranking in 1990 and held it until White defeated him at the world championship in 1998. From March 1990 to January 1991, Hendry won 5 straight titles and 36 consecutive matches to post the longest unbeaten string in the sport’s history. He repeated as world champ from 1992 to 1996. A series of records fell in his wake. He became the first player to score the maximum of 147 three times in tournament play, recording his first 147 in 1992 and two more in 1995 (he scored additional maximums in 1997 and 1998, two in 1999, and others in 2001 and 2009). His 16 centuries in the 2002 world championship also set a record.

In 1996, with an 18–12 victory over Peter Ebdon, Hendry captured his sixth world championship, a feat only two other players (Ray Reardon in the 1970s and Steve Davis in the 1980s) had achieved in the modern era. Following the 1996 world championship, Hendry’s play slipped. After being ranked number one in the world for eight consecutive seasons, he lost the top spot with a first-round loss in the 1998 world championship. He also had lost in the final in 1997, snapping a string of 30 straight wins in that event. At age 30 (seven years younger than Reardon was when he won the first of his six world titles) Hendry considered retirement, but he persevered, working with former coach Frank Callan. Victories in the Scottish Open and the Irish Masters rebuilt his confidence, and at the 1999 world championship he survived an especially tough draw to reach the final, in which he defeated Mark Williams 18–11. Once again, Hendry was setting records, with an unprecedented seventh world title. He had pushed his career earnings past £6.2 million (about $10 million) and by November had reclaimed his number one ranking.

After the 1999 world championship, Hendry’s fortunes faded once more. Although he remained a fixture in the sport’s top 10 rankings, he was unable to equal the heights he had reached in the previous decade. In 2006, however, he demonstrated that he still possessed the talent that made him such a force in the 1990s when he claimed the number one ranking once again. After Hendry lost the top ranking in 2007, his play began to decline, and in 2012 he retired suddenly following his loss in the quarterfinals of the snooker world championship. However, he began competing again in 2021.