UK Championship

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	£850,000
Current champion(s)	Ronnie O'Sullivan

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. Ronnie O'Sullivan and Steve Davis jointly hold the record for the most UK titles, having won the tournament six times each. However, two of Davis' wins (in 1980 and 1981) came at a time when the UK Championship's status hadn't been raised to a degree of a ranking tournament yet. Stephen Hendry has won five titles. O'Sullivan is the reigning champion, having just equalled the six titles by Davis.^[1]

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 1997.^[2]

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.^[2]

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 won 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.^[3]

In 2011 the event returned to the Barbican Centre in York,^[4] and the matches until the quarter-finals were reduced to best of 11 frames.^[5] 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,^[6] but it also hosted the event in 2014.^[7] 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.^[8] 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.^[9]

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.^[10] The 2016 final between Selby and O'Sullivan saw five century breaks in the final six frames of the match as Selby won 10–7.

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,^[2] williamhill.com,^[11]Coral,^[12] and Betway.^[13] 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,^[2] World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (worldsnooker.com),^[14] Snooker Scene (snookerscene.co.uk),^[15] snooker.org^[16]

Year	Winner	Runner-up	Final score	Season	Venue
UK Championship (Non-ranking)
1977	Patsy Fagan	Doug Mountjoy	12–9	1977/78	Tower Circus in Blackpool
1978	Doug Mountjoy	David Taylor	15–9	1978/79	Preston Guild Hall in Preston
1979	John Virgo	Terry Griffiths	14–13	1979/80
1980	Steve Davis	Alex Higgins	16–6	1980/81
1981	Steve Davis	Terry Griffiths	16–3	1981/82
1982	Terry Griffiths	Alex Higgins	16–15	1982/83
1983	Alex Higgins	Steve Davis	16–15	1983/84
UK Championship (Ranking)
1984	Steve Davis	Alex Higgins	16–8	1984/85	Preston Guild Hall in Preston
1985	Steve Davis	Willie Thorne	16–14	1985/86
1986	Steve Davis	Neal Foulds	16–7	1986/87
1987	Steve Davis	Jimmy White	16–14	1987/88
1988	Doug Mountjoy	Stephen Hendry	16–12	1988/89
1989	Stephen Hendry	Steve Davis	16–12	1989/90
1990	Stephen Hendry	Steve Davis	16–15	1990/91
1991	John Parrott	Jimmy White	16–13	1991/92
1992	Jimmy White	John Parrott	16–9	1992/93
1993	Ronnie O'Sullivan	Stephen Hendry	10–6	1993/94
1994	Stephen Hendry	Ken Doherty	10–5	1994/95
1995	Stephen Hendry	Peter Ebdon	10–3	1995/96
1996	Stephen Hendry	John Higgins	10–9	1996/97
1997	Ronnie O'Sullivan	Stephen Hendry	10–6	1997/98
1998	John Higgins	Matthew Stevens	10–6	1998/99	Bournemouth International Centre in Bournemouth
1999	Mark Williams	Matthew Stevens	10–8	1999/00
2000	John Higgins	Mark Williams	10–4	2000/01
2001	Ronnie O'Sullivan	Ken Doherty	10–1	2001/02	Barbican Centre in York
2002	Mark Williams	Ken Doherty	10–9	2002/03
2003	Matthew Stevens	Stephen Hendry	10–8	2003/04
2004	Stephen Maguire	David Gray	10–1	2004/05
2005	Ding Junhui	Steve Davis	10–6	2005/06
2006	Peter Ebdon	Stephen Hendry	10–6	2006/07
2007	Ronnie O'Sullivan	Stephen Maguire	10–2	2007/08	Telford International Centre in Telford
2008	Shaun Murphy	Marco Fu	10–9	2008/09
2009	Ding Junhui	John Higgins	10–8	2009/10
2010	John Higgins	Mark Williams	10–9	2010/11
2011[5]	Judd Trump	Mark Allen	10–8	2011/12	Barbican Centre in York
2012[17]	Mark Selby	Shaun Murphy	10–6	2012/13
2013[18]	Neil Robertson	Mark Selby	10–7	2013/14
2014[19]	Ronnie O'Sullivan	Judd Trump	10–9	2014/15
2015[20]	Neil Robertson	Liang Wenbo	10–5	2015/16
2016[21]	Mark Selby	Ronnie O'Sullivan	10–7	2016/17
2017[22]	Ronnie O'Sullivan	Shaun Murphy	10–5	2017/18

Stats

Finalists

Rank	Name	Nationality	Winner	Runner-up
1	Steve Davis	England	6	4
1	Ronnie O'Sullivan	England	6	1
3	Stephen Hendry	Scotland	5	5
4	John Higgins	Scotland	3	2
5	Mark Williams	Wales	2	2
6	Doug Mountjoy	Wales	2	1
6	Mark Selby	England	2	1
8	Ding Junhui	China	2	0
8	Neil Robertson	Australia	2	0
10	Alex Higgins	Northern Ireland	1	3
11	Terry Griffiths	Wales	1	2
11	Jimmy White	England	1	2
11	Matthew Stevens	Wales	1	2
11	Shaun Murphy	England	1	2
15	John Parrott	England	1	1
15	Stephen Maguire	Scotland	1	1
15	Peter Ebdon	England	1	1
15	Judd Trump	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	20	1979	2017
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