Snooker History: Ken Doherty wins World Snooker Championship 1997
Sports have multi-faceted effects on society. They provide us with entertainment, motivation, patriotism, pride and pure simple joy. But very few people and games have enough influence over people to affect their everyday lives.
One such rare occasion was the final of the Embassy World Snooker Championship 1997. The final was held between the King of the Crucible, Scotland’s Stephen Hendry, and Ireland’s Ken Doherty. The match was so intense and so big, especially for the Irish people that almost every person in Ireland was glued to the TV, watching the match.
A local Irish channel had broadcast the entire match live, the first snooker match ever to have gone live on the channel.
The anticipation and tension in Dublin can be estimated from the fact that that day, Dublin did not record a single phone call or crime in the city.
Ken Doherty won the match by a frame score of 12-18. Before the match, defending champion Stephen Hendry had been unbeaten for 29 matches straight. He was the world champion for five continuous years.
The two-day final was held on May 4 and 5, 1997 at the Crucible Theatre in London. The game was refereed by Alan Chamberlain.
For the first time in the tournament's history, the semifinals were best-of-33 matches as against the earlier stipulation of 31 frames. Stephen Hendry had been unstoppable throughout the tournament. Then came Doherty out of nowhere and beat Steve Davis with a session to spare. He also beat John Higgins and Alain Rubidoux before ousting Hendry and claiming the title.
Doherty became only the second overseas player to win the World Championship after Cliff Thorburn in 1980. He put an end to Hendry’s 29-match winning streak, which was an all-time world record.
Hendry had beaten James Wattana in the semi-final by 17-13 frames while Doherty outplayed Alain Robidoux by a frame score of 17-7 to make it to the final.
Hendry compiled nine centuries in the tournament, six of them being in the final alone. On the other hand, Doherty couldn’t compile a single century in the final and three in the entire tournament. He kept safety a priority in the final.
The final:
Doherty nabbed the first frame with a score of 67-1. Hendry took control of the next two frames, making century breaks of 117 and 106 in both of them. However, Doherty did not succumb to the pressure and turned the tables in his favour, winning the next four frames in a row with scores of 77-13, 78-9, 75-51 and 69-11.
The pressure was on Hendry now, but he responded with another massive century of 122. He won the next frame too, bringing the frame score to 5-4. Doherty bounced back aggressively, taking the next five frames in a row, bringing the frame score to 10-4. His score in the five frames was 89-32, 55-62, 57-43, 65-13 and 85-50.
Both players traded a couple of frames when Doherty again went ahead by winning three frames straight. Hendry was trailing now by 20-7 on the score board when he clawed his way back up by winning five frames in a row, bringing the score to 20-12. He scored three more centuries of 110, 137 and 114 in these five frames.
Ken Doherty was in no mood to give chances and finished the story by winning the next three frames 82-23, 69-19 and 71-49.
The whole crowd cheered Doherty and there were huge rounds of applause, especially from the Irish people on every shot he played in the last frame. The atmosphere was electric and the evening ended with Doherty lifting his first world championship title after beating one of the greatest snooker players of all time – Stephen Hendry.
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