World Snooker Championship 1996 – Memorable Moments
The World Snooker Championship of 1996, which was held from 20 April to 6 May at the Crucible Theater, Sheffield, left us with many memorable moments including the most controversial frame ever between Ronnie O’Sullivan and Alain Rubidoux. Some other moments
include Higgins big disappointment at missing the pink, Ted Lowe’s retirement, Stephen Hendry’s sixth world championship title, Jimmy White’s narrow escape and a record number of centuries made, 48.
Massively Controversial frame Ronnie vs. Rubidoux
One of the most controversial frames ever seen was between Ronnie O’ Sullivan and Alain Rubidoux. It was a best-of-nineteen frame match and Ronnie was leading Rubidoux by a frame score of 8-2. In the 11th frame Ronnie had a lead of 65-22. Since
the game was in safe hands Ronnie started playing left handedly which was taken as disrespect by Rubidoux.
Instead of conceding the match when the scores were 75-22 Rubidoux started attempting snookers. Ronnie had a weird smile on his face while doing this. The game went on for quite a while till Ronnie potted brown and the blue but Rubidoux still didn’t concede
and rather started attempting snookers on the pink now. On the top of it, Ronnie even started avoiding the pots.
After the match, Rubidoux refused to shake hands with his opponent. Ronnie replied to this and called Rubidoux a “baby”. He also claimed that he was better left handed then Rubidoux was right handed.
Higgins Big Disappointment
It was a best-of-twenty-five quarter-final and the frame score between the players was 11-12 in favor of Higgins. Higgins was only looking for one frame to seal the victory in the quarters. Ronnie had a lead of 57 points and Higgins needed all balls. Higgins
did all the hard work and three balls were left on the table, blue, pink and black. He potted the blue bringing the cue balls around the table but was very unlucky as he landed almost straight on the pink, which he missed.
Higgins could have gone through to the semi-final but the pink’s miss gave Ronnie a chance to force the decider. Ronnie also won the deciding frame and Higgins was out of the World championship there.
Jimmy White’s narrow escape
Jimmy white won 10-9 in the first round of the championship playing against Euan Henderson. If Jimmy had lost, he would have dropped out of the top 16 for the first time in his career. However, it did happen next year where he lost to Anthony Hamilton 9-10.
Record number of Centuries
There were 48 centuries made in the 1996 World Snooker Championship which was a new record at that time. The highest break of the tournament was 144 achieved by both Peter Ebdon and Tony Drago.
Ted Lowe’s Retirement
Famous BBC commentator, Ted Lowe, who started in 1969 as a commenter for the famous TV show Pot Black, announced his retirement after the 1996 World Championship although he briefly joined the commentary for the 2005 world championship.
Stephen’s 6th world title
The championship was won by Stephen Henry, a fifth time in row, beating Peter Ebdon in the final by a frame score of 18-12 and it was his sixth World Championship where he equalised the record of Steve Davis who had also won the World Championship six times.
However Hendry surpassed Davis by winning it again in 1999.
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