Pro Snooker Blog

Name: Steve Davis

DOB: August 22nd, 1957

Nationality: English

Turned Pro: 1978

Highest Ranking: #1 (1983-90)

Current Ranking: #22

Highest Break: 147 (1982 Lada Classic)

Career Highlights: Six times World Champion, Six times UK Champion, Three times Masters Champion, Three times Grand Prix Champion,

Website: http://twitter.com/SteveSnooker

In short

Until Stephen Hendry came along and managed to raise the bar further, Steve was universally regarded as the best player to have played the game, winning six world titles as he dominated the game during the 1980’s. Although his glory days have now long gone, he seems to be enjoying the game as much as ever and continues to be a hard man to beat on the ranking event circuit.

Known for his superb tactical game, Davis has always been able to grind out a win but at his peak he was as good a break builder as anyone, as well as a superb long potter. Over the years though as he has got older, Steve has without doubt had to adapt his game to suit his abilities and these days plays with a much more measured, slower approach. Recognising that his potting isn’t what it used to be, he uses his tactical approach to try and overcome the modern players. It is to his credit that he has been able to recognise what he has to do to win and at the age of 51, is still capable of competing with the very best on snooker’s main tour.

As well as his playing career, Steve has also gone on to forge a successful television career with the BBC, as well as pursuing other interests such as professional poker and pool. When Steve does eventually hang up his cue, one thing that is for sure is that we won’t have seen the last of him on our TV screens.

Steve shows that there is more to him than his playing career as he advertises a new game on the Nintendo DS

Early career

As a youngster it was clear to see where Steve’s interest in the game came from as his father was himself a strong amateur player. Very keen to develop his technical abilities, Steve used a copy of Joe Davis’s book, How I Play Snooker, to hone his skills as a teenager. Before long he was recording high breaks and by the age of 17 had hit his first century.

It was not just the playing side of his game that Steve had under control though as in Barry Hearn he had the perfect manager for him. Having spotted him at the Lucania club in Romford, Barry realised Steve’s potential and soon had him signed up under a five year deal.

As far as his amateur career went, it was good without being brilliant, though he did win the British Junior Billiards Championship in 1976. A number of snooker pro-ams followed, culminating in victory over Tony Meo in the final of the 1978 Pontin’s Open.

Steve talks about his greatest ever Crucible opponents

Going pro

Despite failing to win the English amateur title, the time had come for Steve to turn professional, which he did in 1978. Without having a spectacular debut season, he did at least do well enough to qualify for the 1979 World Championship at his first attempt, though he was to lose 13-11 in the first round to Dennis Taylor. He did show improvement in his second season however with a run to the quarter-finals of the UK Championship, before he really made a mark at the Crucible in defeating Terry Griffiths, the reigning world champion 13-10.

Title success

Steve has since said that this win was absolutely crucial, one that really gave him the confidence to compete at the top level and his results during the following 1980/81 season certainly back this up. His first major title came at the UK Championship with a 16-6 victory over Alex Higgins in the final, having already beaten Griffiths 9-0 in the semi-final. He then went on to win the Wilson’s Classic, Yamaha International Masters and the English Professional Championship in the same season as he began to look very much like the number one player.

Embassy elation

Global Snooker

The ultimate test of this notion was to come at the season-ending World Championship however and it was to be one he passed with flying colours. Defeating Jimmy White, Alex Higgins and Terry Griffiths to reach his first semi-final, he then ground out a terrific victory over the reigning champion Cliff Thorburn to progress to his first final. There he would meet Doug Mountjoy who although coming back from 6-0 down to be just two frames behind at 14-12, could not handle Davis who took the next four to secure a 18-12 win. With Barry Hearn famously running down and launching himself at Steve, it was the culmination of several years work as he cemented his status without doubt at the best player in the world.

Sustained success

This victory was to prove just the beginning however as in the following season Steve took a further seven titles, most notably including the defence of his UK crown and the first of three victories in the B&H Masters at Wembley.

He also recorded the first ever televised 147 maximum break at the 1982 Lada Classic against John Spencer as he looked like taking every record set in the game.

Steve makes the first ever televised 147

One thing that Steve could not do however is defeat the ‘Crucible Curse’ and become the only first-time winner of the event to successfully defend his title. Indeed he did not just lose, but on the back of a long season he was absolutely destroyed, losing 10-1 to the unheralded Tony Knowles in the first round.

More world titles

This defeat only served to inspire him for the 1982/3 season however as he added another seven trophies to his collection. Most importantly these included a second world title, clinched with a dominant 18-6 victory over an exhausted Cliff Thorburn who had played 14 more hours of snooker than Davis en route to the final. This victory also moved him up to the top of the world rankings for the first time, though in truth he had been dominant ever since his UK Championship win in 1981.

Steve wins the 1986 UK final as he recovered from those world final defeats

Despite a surprising defeat to Alex Higgins in the UK final later that year having at one stage led 7-0, it was business as usual at the Crucible as he stormed to his third world title. Defeating Jimmy White in the final, he also became the first man to retain his title at the famous theatre and his dominance showed no signs of ending.

THAT final

Back at the Crucible in 1985 with another five titles already behind him, Steve was a huge favourite to take his fourth World Championship crown. Facing Dennis Taylor in the final, who he had beaten in eight of their nine previous meetings, this looked to be exactly what would happen as he won every frame of the first session to move into a seemingly unassailable 8-0 lead.

Amazingly though, Dennis hit back and perhaps feeling that he now had nothing to lose, began to play some of his very best snooker and closed the gap to just two frames at 9-7 overnight.

The closing stages of snooker’s greatest final

The next day Taylor continued his fightback, levelling the match at 11-11 before Davis appeared to have regained his composure, moving into a 15-12 lead. Taylor again hit back though and won the next three frames to make it 15-15 in a match that just did not seem to want to end. Davis again showed his class to move just one away from the match but typically Taylor came back once again to force a thrilling deciding frame.

It went on and on but finally at 12:23am, Taylor who had never led previously in the match, sunk the final black to win his first world championship and inflict a devastating defeat on Steve. He of course retained his position at the top of the rankings but this was a defeat that nobody saw coming.

Still, this did not seem to affect him in the following 1985/6 season as he again won both the UK and Grand Prix titles and once again entered the World Championship as the outstanding favourite. For a second successive year though, he was to be denied by an outsider, this time Bradford’s Joe Johnson who was a total unknown to the public at large.

Deja vu as Steve loses in the 1986 World Championship final

Back on the winning trail

Despite these defeats, Davis remained the clear number one player in the game and continued to win several tournaments a season. It was only a matter of time before he made it four world titles and this he managed to do in 1987 as he gained his revenge over Johnson with an 18-14 win. He managed to make it five in 1988 before taking his sixth and final world championship with a crushing 18-3 win over John Parrott. This was not only a superb achievement in its own right, but at the time elevated him up alongside Ray Reardon in terms of the total amount of world titles won.

Changing of the guard

Times were changing though and it was to be the man who would eventually take this record (and many others), away from Steve in the 1990’s who was the primary cause of it. Young Scot Stephen Hendry had been impressing for a number of years but it was his victories over Steve in the 1989/1990 UK Championships that really signified a changing of the guard. Steve’s status as the world’s best player was now seriously under threat and his defeat to Jimmy White in the semi-finals of the 1990 World Championship, combined with Hendry’s victory in the final saw him slip down to number two in the official rankings.

Global Snooker

Since then, try as he might Steve could never regain the aura of invincibility that had served him so well during the 1980’s. He continued to win ranking event titles with his last coming at the 1995 Welsh Open, while his last major event of any sort was a superb victory at the 1997 B&H Masters against Ronnie O’Sullivan. Hendry though was dominating the game just as Davis had done before him and nobody, not even Steve could not do a thing about it.

Recent years

Since then things have got really tough for Steve, though he still seems to be enjoying the game as much as ever. Despite slipping out of the top 16 after the 1999/2000 season, Davis seemed to relax and results picked up in 2002/3, moving him back into the elite group for the next season.

Now fully embracing his position as an underdog in many of his matches, Steve really began to make an impression on a few tournaments, most notably the 2004 Welsh Open and 2005 UK Championship events where he reached both finals. Despite losing out to Ronnie O’Sullivan and Ding Junhui, performances were good enough to see him achieve one of his biggest ambitions, remaining in the top 16 on his 50th birthday.

2008/9

Although he was to slip back out at the end of the 2007/8 season, Steve made a good start to 2008/9 as he reached successive quarter-finals in the Shanghai Masters and Grand Prix, and while he was hammered 10-2 by Neil Robertson at the World Championship, managed to move up six places to 23rd in the rankings. Of even greater significance perhaps is the fact that he ended the year ranked 13th on the one-year list and goes into 2009/10 with a genuine chance of moving back up into the top 16 once again.

2009/10

Steve’s start to the 2009/10 season was not to be the best however as defeats to Matt Selt and his namesake Mark Davis in the opening two tournaments saw him slip down the provisional list. He was able to win his UK Championship qualifier against Michael Judge to set up yet another clash with fellow legend Stephen Hendry in the last 32 at least, but despite being well in the match at 6-6, his inability to win frames in one visit was to cost him as the Scot took the next three frames for victory.

Following defeats at the Welsh and China Open tournaments it looked like his season may peter out in an uneventful fashion but as things transpired, the World Championship proved to be as dramatic as any event in the past five years for Steve.

Having qualified for his 30th Crucible appearance with an excellent 10-4 victory over Lee Spick at the EISS, Steve was drawn against Mark King at the last 32 stage. Their match in Sheffield proved to be predictably tense and full of drama but eventually it was Steve who prevailed following a deciding frame and his celebration in the arena following the pot of the winning ball showed just how much it meant to him.

With defending champion and provisional world number one John Higgins looming in the next round however, the story surely had to end there? Incredibly not as in the first session of their match, Steve played brilliantly, not just by his current standards, but by anyone’s standards and was able to stretch out a 6-2 lead. Although he was not quite as strong during the subsequent two sessions, John was badly out of sorts and Steve eventually got over the line to complete a momentous 13-11 victory to make it through to the quarter-finals.

Although his run was to end in the next round, again to Australian Neil Robertson, Steve’s victory over Higgins had really captured the imagination and showed that even at the age of 52, Steve cannot be underestimated.

Tournament Victories:

Ranking Event wins (28)

Event	Year
World Championship	1981, 1983-4, 1987-9
UK Championship	1984-87
Grand Prix	1985, 1988-9
British Open	1986, 1993
Asian Open	1992
Regal Welsh Open	1994, 1995
International Open	1983-4, 1987-9
Lada/Mercantile Credit Classic	1984, 1987-8, 1992
European Open	1993

Non-Ranking Event wins (47)

Event	Year
UK Championship	1980-1
Jameson International	1981
Yamaha Masters	1981-2, 1984
Wembley Masters	1982, 1988, 1997
Scottish Masters	1982-4
Wilson’s/Lada Classic	1981-3
Hong Kong Masters	1984, 1987
English Professional Championship	1981, 1985
Tolly Cobbold Classic	1982-4
European Challenge	1991
Pot Black	1982-83, 1991, 1993
Irish Masters	1983-4, 1987-8, 1990-1, 1993-4
Australian Masters	1986
Red Bull Super League	1998
Australian Masters	1986
Canadian Masters	1986
Premier League	1987-90
World Matchplay	1988
European Grand Prix	1989
Matchroom Professional	1989
Belgian Challenge	1992
World Series	1992
China International	1997

Other wins (13)

Event	Year
World Cup	1981, 1983, 1988-9
World Doubles (with Tony Meo)	1982-3, 1985-6
World Trickshot Championship	1994-5, 1997
Mosconi Cup (pool)	1995, 2002