Steve Davis: The Timeless Legend
Steve Davis is a living proof that players don’t fade away with time. Davis was born on the 22nd of August, 1957 in Plumstead, London. The player took up professional snooker in the year 1978. Sine then, Steve Davis has been a treat to watch. Due to his immense amount of experience on the snooker table, he has stunned audiences across the world. Davis has a deep insight towards the game, especially when it comes to making shots from difficult angles.
The 52-year-old had a pretty good run in the 2008/09 season. He climbed up six ranks in the international arena to the 23rd place. In the 2009/10 season, Davis is aiming to stage a comeback in international snooker. Audiences in England and snooker fans across the globe are eagerly waiting for Davis to make a solid comeback.
In the Roewe Shanghai Masters, Davis outdid himself by thwarting the defending champion Dominic Dale by 5 frames to 4. In the next match, Steve Davis made a stunning comeback against Dave Harold to win the game. From a difficult situation of 4 frames to 1, Davis proved that only the best could achieve this feat. He eventually lost to a close and interesting match against Ricky Walden with a 5-2 score.
His next tournament was at Glasgow at the Royal London Club. It was during here that Davis made a nail biting victory against a highly charged Neil Robertson. The game ended with a tight score of 5-4. As he moved further, he faced another close call after Adrian Gunnell fought against Davis till the final frame. It was Ali Carter who was able to knock out the snooker maestro with 5 frames to 3.
Steve Davis went on to compete with Lee Spick in the final qualifying round of the Betfred.com World Snooker Championship. However, in the end, he had to make his way back up from a 10-8 position to book his 29th appearance at the Crucible.
Later on, he commented on his age factor and his excitement to play, “I don’t give it 100 per cent like I used to, but it still hurts when I lose and I still consider myself a player. I’m half decent and I can get by.”
He also added, “It’s fantastic to play at the Crucible. The excitement of the build-up is like Christmas.”
However, Neil Robertson thrashed Davis in the final where the snooker king was unable to make his amazing comebacks as usual. The match ended with a score of 10 frames to 2.
Even after this defeat, his fans and media asked if this would be his last appearance. The timeless legend replied, “I’m not sure it’s about bowing out in style, more like hanging on for grim death really.”
About his fate of leaving snooker, he later added, “I’m going down the walls slowly with my finger nails embedded, screeching down. To me its nature, you go up the rankings and then you down the rankings. The challenge is how long it takes.”
In 2005, he made history as he reached the astounding landmark of reaching the UK Championship in 2005. This also marked the 100th major final of his career.
His hard paid rich dividends in 2007, when Davis became the 16th player in the world. At this time, the maestro had crossed the age of 50. He did however drop out from the elite class in the year that followed.
He battled with Mark Allen, Stephen Maguire, Ken Doherty and Stephen Hendry and after defeating all of them, went down to Ding Junhui with 10-6 in the end.
Steve’s last major final that he qualified for was at the Welsh Open in 2004. There, he opened his account by defeating Ronnie O’Sullivan with frame score of 8-5. However, in the final, he lost a close encounter with 9 frames to 8. Davis won his last major title in 1997 against the Rocket. It was an amazing match when Davis played his signature style of play, winning the last six frames. The match was held at the Wembley Arena where he won the final with 10-8.
As the sport was developing in its early days, Steve Davis worked really hard in promoting the game. He was one of the top guns during the eighties era which led him to his first world title in 1981. He beat Doug Mountjoy in memorable match which ended at 18-12. He grabbed his sixth and last world title in 1989 with his record breaking win against the Parrot with 18 frames to 3.
Some of his notoriously popular defeats were in the Crucible finals. In 1985, he lost a match 18-17 on the final black to Dennis Taylor. The match so long, that it was broadcasted till 12:20 am. It is said that the match had at least an audience of 18.5 million on BBC2.
After the thrilling match, Davis made the popular catch phrase, “It’s all there in black and white.” The next year he had the same bad luck when he went down to Johnson with 18-12. He later often made jokes about his bad luck during tense situations.
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