UK Championship

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For topics with similar titles, see UK Championships.
UK Championship
Tournament information
Venue Barbican Centre
Location York
Country England
Established 1977
Organisation(s) World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association
Format Ranking event
Total prize fund £740,000[1][2]
Recent edition 2015
Current champion(s) Australia Neil Robertson

The UK Championship - known as the Betway UK Championship for sponsorship reasons - is a professional men's ranking snooker tournament. It is the second biggest ranking tournament after the World Championship and is one of the Triple Crown events. Neil Robertson is the reigning champion.

History

The UK Championship was first held in 1977 in Tower Circus, Blackpool as the United Kingdom Professional Snooker Championship, an event open only to British residents and passport holders. Patsy Fagan won the inaugural tournament by defeating Doug Mountjoy by 12 frames to 9 in the final and won the first prize of £2000. The following year the event moved to the Guild Hall, Preston, where it remained until 1998.[3]

The rules were changed in 1984 when the tournament was granted ranking status and all professionals were allowed to enter. Since then, it has carried more ranking points than any tournament other than the World Championship.[3]

The tournament has seen many memorable finals. In 1977 and 1979, it provided Patsy Fagan and John Virgo with their first and only major tournament wins respectively. In 1980, it was Steve Davis's first of his 73 professional tournament wins. In 1981, the final between Davis and Terry Griffiths set the stage for four more final battles between Davis and Griffiths that were to dominate the rest of the season before their unexpected losses in the first round of the 1982 World Championship.

In 1983, Alex Higgins beat Davis 16–15 after having trailed 7–0 at the end of the first session. In 1985, Willie Thorne led Davis 13–10 at the start of the evening session, only to miss a simple blue off its spot and lose 16–14. The victory regenerated Davis's confidence after his devastating World Championship loss; Thorne, on the other hand, never won another ranking title.

In 1988, Doug Mountjoy, widely viewed as just making up the numbers against the rising Stephen Hendry, produced a stunning display of character and ability to win 16–12 and become the second-oldest ever winner of a ranking event; even more astonishingly, he was to win the Mercantile Credit Classic the following month, which at the time made Mountjoy only the fourth player to win two ranking tournaments in a row.

Stephen Hendry's 1989 win prefigured his decade of dominance similar to the one prefigured by Davis's win in 1980; its significance was emphasised by the fact that the losing finalist was Davis himself. Hendry's 16–15 win the following year, over Davis again, spoke to his unique qualities of nerve. The Hendry/Ken Doherty final of 1994 is considered by many players as one of Hendry's best performance, as he won 10–5 making 7 century breaks along the way, six of which were in the span of eight frames played. Doherty has appeared in two more memorable finals.

In 1993, Ronnie O'Sullivan became the youngest-ever winner of the tournament (and any ranking tournament) aged just 17. Eight years later, in 2001, he delivered the final's best winning margin since it had become the best of 19 frames in the 1993 tournament, beating Ken Doherty 10–1. Three years later, in 2004, Stephen Maguire repeated the feat against David Gray. Doherty almost won the tournament in the 2002 final against Mark Williams, but lost 9–10 in a dramatic deciding frame.

File:UK Snooker Championship Trophy.JPG
The UK Championship trophy on display at the Alexandra Palace during the 2014 Masters

The 2005 tournament saw Davis, aged 48, reached his first ranking tournament final for almost two years and make his highest break in tournament play for 23 years. In a match that featured the widest age gap between finalists in professional tournament history, he lost 6–10 to the 18-year-old Ding Junhui. The following year, Peter Ebdon won the title and, in doing so, became the first and only man to have both won and lost a World and a UK Championship final to Stephen Hendry. The event offered £500,000 prize money, with the winner receiving £70,000.

In 2007, the tournament was won by Ronnie O'Sullivan for the fourth time, again with some ease, as he beat Stephen Maguire 10–2 in the final. The tournament was also notable for the longest televised frame (77 minutes) between Marco Fu and Mark Selby and Ronnie O'Sullivan's maximum 147 break in the deciding frame of the semi-final. The 2009 final saw the reigning world champion John Higgins lose to Ding Junhui, after he missed the brown and the chance to go 8–6 in front.

The 2010 final turned out to be another dramatic match, instantly described by many commentators as an all-time classic. At one point, John Higgins, playing in his first major tournament after the end of a six-month ban for his involvement in match-fixing discussions, was 5–9 down to Mark Williams. However, he managed to win the next two frames. At 7–9, Williams led by 29 points with only 27 on the table, leaving Higgins requiring a snooker to remain in the tournament. Higgins got the snooker and cleared the colours. Another frame won by Higgins took the match to the decider. Finally, with only brown, blue, pink and black left at the table, Higgins potted the brown into a top pocket by playing cross-double across the long axis of the table and then added a difficult long blue and equally difficult pink, thereby winning the frame and thus the tournament by 10–9. In the emotional post-match interview, he described his win as his finest hour and dedicated it to his terminally ill father.[4]

In 2011 the event returned to the Barbican Centre in York,[5] and the matches until the quarter-finals were reduced to best of 11 frames.[6] In 2013 a 128-player flat draw was used, with all players starting in the first round and all rounds played at the Barbican venue. The tournament was contractually due to stay at the Barbican Centre until 2013,[7] but it also hosted the event in 2014.[8] The 2014 event changed the format once again, with every round up to and including the semi-finals being played over best-of-11 frames.[9] This tournament saw yet another classic final, as Ronnie O'Sullivan won his fifth title 10–9 over 2011 winner Judd Trump, who had recovered from 9–4 to take the match into a decider.[10]

In 2015, the final featured Australia's Neil Robertson and China's Liang Wenbo, the first time that a UK Championship final had been contested between two overseas players.[11]

The tournament has had many different sponsors over the years, including Super Crystalate, Tennents, StormSeal, Royal Liver Assurance, Liverpool Victoria, PowerHouse, Travis Perkins, Maplin Electronics, Pukka Pies, 12BET.com,[3] williamhill.com,[12]Coral,[13] and Betway.[14] It is one of the tournaments televised by the BBC and it is held towards the end of each calendar year.

Winners

[3][15][16][17]

Year Winner Runner-up Final score Sponsor Venue Season
Non-ranking
1977 Republic of Ireland Patsy Fagan Wales Doug Mountjoy 12–9 Super Crystalate Tower Circus in Blackpool 1977/78
1978 Wales Doug Mountjoy England David Taylor 15–9 Coral Preston Guild Hall in Preston 1978/79
1979 England John Virgo Wales Terry Griffiths 14–13 1979/80
1980 England Steve Davis Northern Ireland Alex Higgins 16–6 1980/81
1981 England Steve Davis Wales Terry Griffiths 16–3 1981/82
1982 Wales Terry Griffiths Northern Ireland Alex Higgins 16–15 1982/83
1983 Northern Ireland Alex Higgins England Steve Davis 16–15 1983/84
Ranking
1984 England Steve Davis Northern Ireland Alex Higgins 16–8 Coral Preston Guild Hall in Preston 1984/85
1985 England Steve Davis England Willie Thorne 16–14 1985/86
1986 England Steve Davis England Neal Foulds 16–7 Tennents 1986/87
1987 England Steve Davis England Jimmy White 16–14 1987/88
1988 Wales Doug Mountjoy Scotland Stephen Hendry 16–12 1988/89
1989 Scotland Stephen Hendry England Steve Davis 16–12 StormSeal 1989/90
1990 Scotland Stephen Hendry England Steve Davis 16–15 1990/91
1991 England John Parrott England Jimmy White 16–13 None 1991/92
1992 England Jimmy White England John Parrott 16–9 Royal Liver Assurance 1992/93
1993 England Ronnie O'Sullivan Scotland Stephen Hendry 10–6 1993/94
1994 Scotland Stephen Hendry Republic of Ireland Ken Doherty 10–5 1994/95
1995 Scotland Stephen Hendry England Peter Ebdon 10–3 1995/96
1996 Scotland Stephen Hendry Scotland John Higgins 10–9 None 1996/97
1997 England Ronnie O'Sullivan Scotland Stephen Hendry 10–6 Liverpool Victoria 1997/98
1998 Scotland John Higgins Wales Matthew Stevens 10–6 Bournemouth International Centre in Bournemouth 1998/99
1999 Wales Mark Williams Wales Matthew Stevens 10–8 1999/00
2000 Scotland John Higgins Wales Mark Williams 10–4 2000/01
2001 England Ronnie O'Sullivan Republic of Ireland Ken Doherty 10–1 None Barbican Centre in York 2001/02
2002 Wales Mark Williams Republic of Ireland Ken Doherty 10–9 PowerHouse 2002/03
2003 Wales Matthew Stevens Scotland Stephen Hendry 10–8 Travis Perkins 2003/04
2004 Scotland Stephen Maguire England David Gray 10–1 2004/05
2005 China Ding Junhui England Steve Davis 10–6 2005/06
2006 England Peter Ebdon Scotland Stephen Hendry 10–6 Maplin 2006/07
2007 England Ronnie O'Sullivan Scotland Stephen Maguire 10–2 Telford International Centre in Telford 2007/08
2008 England Shaun Murphy Hong Kong Marco Fu 10–9 2008/09
2009 China Ding Junhui Scotland John Higgins 10–8 Pukka Pies 2009/10
2010 Scotland John Higgins Wales Mark Williams 10–9 12BET.com 2010/11
2011[6] England Judd Trump Northern Ireland Mark Allen 10–8 williamhill.com Barbican Centre in York 2011/12
2012[18] England Mark Selby England Shaun Murphy 10–6 2012/13
2013[19] Australia Neil Robertson England Mark Selby 10–7 2013/14
2014[20] England Ronnie O'Sullivan England Judd Trump 10–9 Coral 2014/15
2015[21] Australia Neil Robertson China Liang Wenbo 10–5 Betway 2015/16

Stats

Finalists

Rank Name Nationality Winner Runner-up
1 Steve Davis  England 6 4
2 Stephen Hendry  Scotland 5 5
3 Ronnie O'Sullivan  England 5 0
4 John Higgins  Scotland 3 2
5 Mark Williams  Wales 2 2
6 Doug Mountjoy  Wales 2 1
7 Ding Junhui  China 2 0
7 Neil Robertson  Australia 2 0
9 Alex Higgins  Northern Ireland 1 3
10 Terry Griffiths  Wales 1 2
10 Jimmy White  England 1 2
10 Matthew Stevens  Wales 1 2
13 John Parrott  England 1 1
13 Stephen Maguire  Scotland 1 1
13 Peter Ebdon  England 1 1
13 Shaun Murphy  England 1 1
13 Judd Trump  England 1 1
13 Mark Selby  England 1 1
19 Patsy Fagan  Ireland 1 0
19 John Virgo  England 1 0
21 Ken Doherty  Ireland 0 3
22 David Taylor  England 0 1
22 Willie Thorne  England 0 1
22 Neal Foulds  England 0 1
22 David Gray  England 0 1
22 Marco Fu  Hong Kong 0 1
22 Mark Allen  Northern Ireland 0 1
22 Liang Wenbo  China 0 1
  • Active players are shown in bold.

Champions by country

Country Players Total First title Last title
 England 9 18 1979 2014
 Scotland 3 9 1989 2010
 Wales 4 6 1978 2003
 China 1 2 2005 2009
 Australia 1 2 2013 2015
 Republic of Ireland 1 1 1977 1977
 Northern Ireland 1 1 1983 1983

References

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  9. ↑ http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/snooker/30080548
  10. ↑ http://www.worldsnooker.com/page/NewsArticles/0,,13165~4352524,00.html
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  14. ↑ http://www.worldsnooker.com/page/NewsArticles/0,,13165~4608877,00.html
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