Pro Snooker Blog

Name: Barry Hawkins

DOB: April 23rd, 1979

Nationality: English

Turned Pro: 1996

Highest Ranking: #12 (2006/7)

Current Ranking: #21

Highest Break: 147 (2010 PTC Event Three)

Career Highlights: 2007 Masters Qualifying Event Champion, 2005 & 2006 Welsh Open Semi-Finalist, 2007 China Open Semi-Finalist, 2008 Northern Ireland Trophy Quarter-Finalist

Early career

Turning professional in 1996, it was to take Barry a number of years to really make an impact on the game, his first big result coming at the 2002 Scottish Open when he knocked out Ronnie O’Sullivan in the second round.

Slowly moving up the rankings, he was to improve dramatically in the 2004/5 season when he reached his first semi-final at the Welsh Open, as well as the last sixteen of three other events. This put him up into the top 32 of the rankings and meant that he would only have to win one qualifying match to reach the final stages of the events.

Better was to come in 2005/6 however as he reached the semi-finals of a further two ranking events at the Grand Prix and again the Welsh Open. He also managed to qualify for the World Championship for the first time, though this was to end in an embarrassing 10-1 defeat to Ken Doherty in the first round. Nevertheless he was to break into the top 16 for the first time at a career high position of 12.

Dip in form

As can happen to some players however, with the pressure now on him as one of the seeded players, Barry struggled to cope with this as his form dipped dramatically. A semi-final appearance at the China Open was his only highlight as he dropped out of the top 16 after losing a dramatic match at the Crucible 10-9 to Fergal O’Brien, ending the season in 19th position.

2007/8 was marginally more consistent with three runs to the last 16 of events, but he again fell at the first fence in the World Championship. He was terribly unfortunate here as having found himself 9-6 down again Ali Carter, he levelled the match at 9-9 and was horrified to see the match suspended until later that evening, at a time when the momentum was with him. Carter managed to get his head together in the interval and take the decisive frame, eventually going on to make the final while Hawkins wondered what might have been.

He did at least win the Masters Qualifying event this season but as a non-ranking event, this did not prevent him from slipping down to 27 on the list for the new season.

2008/9

After a tough couple of seasons the 2008/9 campaign saw a return to the kind of consistency that took Barry into the top 16 in the first place as he won six of his last 48 matches and progressed to the quarter-finals of both the Northern Ireland Trophy and the Bahrain Championship.

Having experienced a mini-slump towards the end of the season he came into his opening World Championship qualifier needing a win to keep his hopes of a return to the top 16 for 2009/10 alive and his match with young Welshman Daniel Wells proved to be a thriller. Early on it was all Hawkins as he looked confident and ended the first session with a 6-3 lead, but despite continuing to score well, a succession of missed frame balls allowed Wells to fight back and eventually level at 9-9. Barry though kept his focus and clinched the decider with a brilliant break of 80 and earned a last 32 tie with Graeme Dott.

Arriving in Sheffield for that match, Barry knew that he would have to beat the 2006 champion to stand any chance of moving back into the top 16 but unfortunately despite leading 5-4 after the first session, he could not see it through and slipped to his fourth successive last 32 defeat at the Crucible.

2009/10

Well placed provisionally to fight for a place back in the top 16 at the start of 2009/10, Barry got his season off to a decent start with victory over Simon Bedford in the Shanghai Masters qualifiers, before receiving a bye through to the last 16 following the withdrawal of Stephen Maguire. Once there however he lost out 5-4 to Ken Doherty and subsequent defeats to Mark Joyce and then Tom Ford saw him fail to qualify for either of the next two events.

Global Snooker

The second half of Barry’s season was also a struggle as whilst he did manage to win all three of his qualifying matches, he could not go further than the last 32 stage in any of the events, his season ending with an opening day defeat to John Higgins at the Crucible Theatre. This meant that Barry would drop four places to 21st in the rankings for 2010/11.

Non-Ranking Event wins (2)