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) |
 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.
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
- Sources: cajt.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk,[3] World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (worldsnooker.com),[15] Snooker Scene (snookerscene.co.uk),[16] snooker.org[17]
Stats
Finalists
| Rank | Name | Nationality | Winner | Runner-up |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Davis, SteveSteve Davis |  England |
6 | 4 |
| 2 | Hendry, StephenStephen Hendry |  Scotland |
5 | 5 |
| 3 | O'Sullivan, RonnieRonnie O'Sullivan | England |
5 | 0 |
| 4 | Higgins, JohnJohn Higgins | Scotland |
3 | 2 |
| 5 | Williams, MarkMark Williams |  Wales |
2 | 2 |
| 6 | Mountjoy, DougDoug Mountjoy | Wales |
2 | 1 |
| 7 | Junhui, DingDing Junhui |  China |
2 | 0 |
| 7 | Robertson, NeilNeil Robertson | Australia |
2 | 0 |
| 9 | Higgins, AlexAlex Higgins |  Northern Ireland |
1 | 3 |
| 10 | Griffiths, TerryTerry Griffiths | Wales |
1 | 2 |
| 10 | White, JimmyJimmy White | England |
1 | 2 |
| 10 | Stevens, MatthewMatthew Stevens | Wales |
1 | 2 |
| 13 | Parrott, JohnJohn Parrott | England |
1 | 1 |
| 13 | Maguire, StephenStephen Maguire | Scotland |
1 | 1 |
| 13 | Ebdon, PeterPeter Ebdon | England |
1 | 1 |
| 13 | Murphy, ShaunShaun Murphy | England |
1 | 1 |
| 13 | Trump, JuddJudd Trump | England |
1 | 1 |
| 13 | Selby, MarkMark Selby | England |
1 | 1 |
| 19 | Fagan, PatsyPatsy Fagan |  Ireland |
1 | 0 |
| 19 | Virgo, JohnJohn Virgo | England |
1 | 0 |
| 21 | Doherty, KenKen Doherty | Ireland |
0 | 3 |
| 22 | Taylor, DavidDavid Taylor | England |
0 | 1 |
| 22 | Thorne, WillieWillie Thorne | England |
0 | 1 |
| 22 | Foulds, NealNeal Foulds | England |
0 | 1 |
| 22 | Gray, DavidDavid Gray | England |
0 | 1 |
| 22 | Fu, MarcoMarco Fu |  Hong Kong |
0 | 1 |
| 22 | Allen, MarkMark Allen | Northern Ireland |
0 | 1 |
| 22 | Wenbo, LiangLiang 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
- ↑ "UK Championship – Turnierinfo: Sieger, Preisgeld & Distanzen" (in German). Yahoo Eurosport. 25 November 2014. Retrieved 25 November 2014.
- ↑ "Rocket Flies To Magical Maximum". worldsnooker.com. World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association. 4 December 2014. Retrieved 5 December 2014.
- 1 2 3 4 Turner, Chris. "UK Championship". cajt.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk. Chris Turner's Snooker Archive. Archived from the original on 16 February 2012. Retrieved 1 March 2011.
- ↑ "Higgins – My Finest Hour". worldsnooker.com. World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association. Retrieved 13 December 2010.
- ↑ "UK Championship to return to York Barbican". worldsnooker.com. World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association. Retrieved 27 April 2011.
- 1 2 "UK Championship (2011)". Snooker.org. Retrieved 12 October 2011.
- ↑ "York Return for UK Championship". World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association. Retrieved 8 May 2012.
- ↑ "York Snooker Tickets On Sale". World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association. 28 April 2014. Retrieved 31 August 2014.
- ↑ http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/snooker/30080548
- ↑ http://www.worldsnooker.com/page/NewsArticles/0,,13165~4352524,00.html
- ↑ "Robertson sets up final date with Liang at UK Championship". RTÉ Sport. 5 December 2015. Retrieved 5 December 2015.
- ↑ "williamhill.com To Sponsor UK". World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association. Retrieved 30 November 2010.
- ↑ "Coral To Sponsor UK Championship". worldsnooker.com. World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association. 20 November 2014. Retrieved 21 November 2014.
- ↑ http://www.worldsnooker.com/page/NewsArticles/0,,13165~4608877,00.html
- ↑ "UK Championship Event History". worldsnooker.com. World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association. Retrieved 23 June 2012.
- ↑ "UK Championship". Snooker Scene. Archived from the original on 24 January 2013. Retrieved 5 February 2013.
- ↑ "Hall of Fame". Snooker.org. Retrieved 22 June 2013.
- ↑ "williamhill.com UK Championship (2012)". Snooker.org. Retrieved 8 October 2011.
- ↑ "williamhill.com UK Championship (2013)". Snooker.org. Retrieved 9 April 2013.
- ↑ "Coral UK Championship (2014)". Snooker.org. Retrieved 7 December 2014.
- ↑ "Betway UK Championship (2015)". Snooker.org. Retrieved 6 April 2015.
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