No player has won more than two ranking titles in a single season since 2004/05 when Ronnie O’Sullivan captured the Grand Prix, Welsh Open and Irish Masters.
John Higgins had a fine run from the 2009 China Open until last season’s Welsh Open, winning two titles and reaching six successive semi-finals but this hardly counts as domination in the mode of Steve Davis and Stephen Hendry at their peaks.
Davis won 12 of the 19 ranking events staged from the 1985 Grand Prix to the same tournament in 1988.
Hendry won five – yes, I did say five – successive ranking titles from the 1990 World Championship to the 1991 Mercantile Classic, part of a run of seven consecutive finals that also included his capture of the Wembley Masters.
So the question is this: will anyone dominate the new season in anything approaching the same way?
And the answer is almost certainly this: no.
The truth is, there are some very, very good players around right now but nobody who is so far in front of the rest that they can claim to be snooker’s dominant force.
Nobody is playing any better than Hendry did at his peak - not on a tournament-to-tournament basis - but there have still been plenty of performances in recent times that have enthralled.
O’Sullivan can still turn it on and play snooker that appears to have fallen from the Gods but at other times in the last couple of years he has shown clear signs of decline.
Players like Shaun Murphy, Mark Selby, Ding Junhui and, of course, our new Crucible king Neil Robertson will be expected to challenge for major honours but on any given day any one of them could beat any of the others.
Throw in Mark Williams, Ali Carter, Mark Allen and Stephen Maguire and you have a set of top players who are all deadly at their best but the game has become so competitive that titles are shared around more than ever.
Pound for pound, Higgins and O’Sullivan have been the two best players of the last three or four years.
Which younger player will step up and supersede them in the next couple of seasons?
Robertson is an obvious candidate because he is a proven winner. The Australian has appeared in five ranking finals and won them all.
He has what it takes to become world no.1. Hendry, Higgins, Williams and O’Sullivan have had that position tied up between them for the last 20 years.
But the days of one player dominating to the extent that Davis and Hendry did appear to be over...for now.
Who is to say someone won’t come along who is head and shoulders above everyone else?
One thing’s for sure: they’ll have to be some player.
46 comments:
I would think domination is unlikely - if it does happy most likely to be Robertson or Ding.
The 12 PTC events will be interesting - from looking at darts equivalent events I would say that anyone in the top 32 has a reasonable chance of winning 1 of these events
I don't think anyone will dominate in Hendry's or Davis' way anytime soon. It's not just related to their quality as players. They were outstanding, no question, but the competition wasn't the same neither.
Davis was the first to take a quasi scientific approach to the game, studying its physics closely and applying it to hone his own technique. That and his total dedication made him the dominant force he was. Hendry no doubt was an outstanding talent, the more consistent player ever at the highest standard and totally dedicated as well, but his tally was helped by a relatively weak field in the late 80th/early 90th. Davis then was starting to struggle with his game, Jimmy White was always a maverick but other than them you had 4 players over 40 in the top 8 in 1990, something totally unthinkable by today's standards. Even Hendry, 7 times World Champion didn't manage to stay there at 40.
Also ROS might be in decline but how much in decline is still to be seen. Yes, he does say it himself but ... he says so many things ;) Actually he's been inconsistent for his whole carreer. For instance, he was winning everything in 2004 - 2005 and then he has almost 3 years without winning a ranking event. So much so that Clive Everton wrote an article in snooker scene explaining why ROS would probably never win a ranking title again. That was the fall of 2007. In December 2007 he won the UK, and the same season the WC in May 2008... so? So, we don't know. It will be interesting to see how it goes this season, if he will find the motivation to play in all PTCs or in most of them at least, and if regular match play will help his game and confidence.
It will also be interesting to see how Neil Robertson will cope with the pressure of being World Champion and a new father.
I think the first commenter is right on, if anyone is going to dominate it will be Ding. Three big finals last season, and he won the biggest one of them.
I'm curious re the new ranking system. Anyone know whether the points from the 2008/9 Bahrain Championship will be taken off at the first revision? Anyone have a list of the points each player will at that point still carry from 2008/9?
Watch much snooker in the early 90s did you, Monique?
In that case you'll know Hendry had to contend with a number of grinders who scrapped up the table and tried to stop attacking players, unlike today where it's go for everything and feed off the scraps if you miss
But they couldn't stop Hendry because he is the best player who has ever lived - not just the greatest but the best
Complete myth that Hendry dominated in a weak era propagated by ignorant Ronnie O'Sullivan fans
Hendry was world no.1 until 1998 so for six years in which O'Sullivan, Higgins and Williams were all playing and all winning titles
Doesn't sound like a very weak era to me
the reason nobody will dominate isn't to do with standards at all but mind set.
when players wins a tournament these days they relax think ohhh well ive won one. where as Davis and especially hendry before he left the arena with one trophy was already thinking of winning the next tournament.
you hear players say but standards are so much better these days but immediately they excuse the reason why dominating isn't possible and convince themselves it cant be done.
i disagree, its possible very possible.
If the standard was weak in the 1990s I must have been watching a different game to everyone else!
It's pre-supposing that a high 'standard' means big breaks, which is all it seems to be measured by these days by those who have pnly ever watched the current form of snooker
Most of today's top players wouldn't have a prayer against the hard men of the 1980s. They were proper matchplayers with patience, guile and tablecraft.
Hendry's great fortune was that he didn't turn pro ten years earlier not ten years later, he still would have cleaned up had he turned pro in the 90s, more so in fact because most of the old grinders had gone off the boil by then
As much as I admire Davis & Hendry.
I would rather there be several players of a similar standard sharing the trophies.
That's what we've had for most of the last decade anyway & I doubt if that will change anytime soon.
Yes,someone may dominate for a single season (eg) win 7 or 8 of the 20 counting events.
But,5 to 10 years consistent winning like Davis & Hendry -
It will probably never occur again.
O'Sullivan,John Higgins & Mark Williams all stopped each other doing so & the likes of Robertson,
Ding,Murphy,Selby - you could not seperate them with a cigarette paper - It's SOOOO competitive -
just the way it should be !
I agree it's not about pure talent but mental attitude
This was certainly key to Hendry's success and all the talk of 'weak eras' is nonsense: he was the best of his time by a huge distance because he played to a consistently higher standard than everyone else and was able to withstand the pressure better than everyone else
Sportsmen like that are rare and would have thrived in any era
Hendry did win only 2 majors after the 1995/96 season: the 1996 UK and the 1999 WC, 2 of the 18 he won in total. At the start of that 1996/97 season ROS was only 20, Higgins and Williams 21 and yet it marked the end of Hendry's dominance: he still won titles, yes, but he had to share them with the three others, not mentioning the Ebdon (entered the game in 91), Doherty (entered the game in 90). He was only 27 so it's not that he was in decline. And yes, he was still N°1 in 1998 with the 2 years ranking system.
There were grinders around in 1990, sure, but you can't do much as a grinder when your opponent is in and clears the table. That was the style Hendry imposed at the time, his style. And he was taken as a model by the youngsters who came after him, the Ros, Higgins, Williams and today's players. But if you look at his carreer you can't deny that when this new brand of players came to age, 4 years after the game was opened, Hendry couldn't dominate anymore and the old guard who was still there in early 90th had plumetted out of the tops.
This is neither a go at Hendry, nor an attempt to deny him his status of best player of all times; he is, his tally proves it. Whoever he was facing he still had to win those tournaments, one after the other, year after year. And he did. But he didn't have the opposition he faced later in the 1996-205 decade, he didn't have the opposition players face today and that's why he could dominate to the extend he did.
Nobody beats time: Griffith, Taylor, Thorburn were all excellent players, I'm not underestimating them, but if someone had to beat them at their peak it was Davis, not Hendry.
@Dave I did write the early 90th. The 1996-2005 era was very, very strong. When the game was opened in 1992 the standard improved rapidly with a flood of new blood but it still asked for a 3-4 years for those players to come to age and gain the necessary experience.
Will you tell me that Dennis Taylor, Terry Griffith and Cliff Thorburn were all better players than Hendry? I don't think so and yet they managed to still reach the latter stages of main tournaments and the WC regularly in the early 90th and were still in top 8 in 1990. Today Hendry is struggling to keep his ranking and he's about the same age they were at the time, or younger. I don't think any of them could have survived in the top 8, or the top 16 even, in the 1996-2005 decade, or even today which is a weaker era IMO than the said decade.
The standard wasn't weak in the nineties, but it has become higher in the noughties. There are more players down the ranking list now that can turn over top players, something Hendry never had to deal with.
Hendry would not have won seven titles in the last decade, so I disagree Dave, when you say no one can play as well as his peak, as O'Sullivan and probably Higgins A-games more than match-up.
I know that these comments won't resonate strongly as I am an O'Sullivan supporter, so will be accused of bias, but I believe O'Sullivan could have dominated the last decade ina way reminiscient of Hendry, and if he had it would have been against sterner opposition in general.
Also Higgins, Williams and O'Sullivan all peaked after Hendry's pomp. They were major players during the nineties, but have fulfilled their dreams in the next decade - by and large.
What a lot of nonsense Monique writes with her vast experience of not watching any snoomer until about five years ago
This year's world final was dreadful. There hasn't been a good one since 2003.
The 1990 final was brilliant beyond belief.
Know your history or shut up.
Jamie - perfectly acceptable theories but that's all they are. We'll never know. In my opinion Hendry would still have won more world titles than anyone else because he had the best temperament.
Ronnie has himself admitted he had neither the temperament or dedication to 'be another Hendry, a Schumacher or a Phil Taylor.' John Higgins went walkabout for several years and Mark Williams also declined before coming back to form recently.
Anyway, the original post was meant to be about the future, not the past!
Monique - the game has changed. Cliff, Dennis and Terry weren't as good by today's standards of break building but they were hard, unremittingly tough players from an era where snooker was about more than long red, 80, end of frame (not that I knock that - far from it). If Ronnie gets frustrated playing Selby think how he would have coped having to do battle with them!
I steer away from comparing eras because it's pointless and always seems to end in a tedious Hendry v O'Sullivan argument.
Every era had its strengths and weaknesses. At the top of the game now there are more players than ever before who are capable of heavy scoring but I'm sceptical about the often referred to 'strength in depth' and that 'anyone can win major titles'
Why is it always the same faces that do win them, then?
The standard of the best players now isn't any higher than that that Hendry produced at his best is all I was saying. His era wasn't weak it was just different.
Monique - O'Sullivan was UK champion in 1993 so your point doesn't hold up
It's just the usual Hendry-bashing by Ronnie fans
Why can't they just accept facts: that they are both great players but that Hendry is the greatest?
It's true what you say about Ronnie and the old guard. he played Dennis Taylor in the Masters in 1994 and Dennis beat him. young ronnie didn't have a clue then how to play that sort of snooker.
There is no such thing as a "weak" era.
As each post war decade unfolded, the next generation played to a higher standard than the previous one.
John Pulman raised the bar in the 60's, Reardon did it in the 70's and Davis in the 80's.
The 90's and Hendry saw the end of grinding as a prelude to winning, an era in which the Scot was defined by knocking in a long pot and winning the game in one visit.
This became the benchmark in the 2000s, and while the individual exploits of Hendry have not been overtaken, the general standard has risen, albeit, slightly.
I fully expect the next generation to improve further, although I doubt anyone will consistently reach the level of Hendry, who I believe, would have dominated in any era.
There is no player in the game today who looks as if they could dominate, and particularly Ding, who has had doubts cast on his temperament, and misses too many balls under pressure to become a dominant force.
Another issue I would like to raise while we're on the theme of dominating, is the myth that Davis and Hendry had no competition, while Williams, O'Sullivan and Higgins stopped each other from dominating.
Davis came into the game as Reardon was at his peak. Alex Higgins was only a pro 7 years and Terry Griffiths preceded Thorburn as champion.
It was, at the time, a veritable hotbed and with White and Stevens on the up, and Spencer and Taylor playing to a high standard, it took a bit of doing to dominate the game for the next 10 years.
Had he only won, say 3 world titles, we would probably be saying today that he would have dominated only he was in the same era as all those great players.
The reason Higgins, O'Sullivan and Williams have not dominated is simple.
All 3 are great players, but none of them were great enough to consistently outperform their peers, as Hendry, Davis and Reardon did before, and barring the emergence of some kind of robot player, the standard is too high for anyone else to dominate now.
It is futile Dave, but we all do it in any sport!!
However, why does it always come down to Hendry v O'Sullivan? Because deep down in terms of pure ability these are the two best A-Games that we have ever seen, and I think if everyone was being honest there would be universal agreement.
I'm looking forward to buying snooker scene after the three lions hopefully roar, but a little disappointed by only two pages on the Higgins, I thought there would be more, but I suppose it's a delicate issue.
We reported all the pertinent facts but - unlike seemingly everyone else - did not speculate wildly or decide on Higgins's guilt or otherwise without having the full facts to hand
Snooker © The Fine Art Method
A secret is wasted if not shared
Dear Monique @ 10:47 am
How are you and hello Dave! You write fair articles lass, but please don’t embellish your posts with “Copyright Material”.
Your comments about the Steve Davis on technique was maybe “partly true” but the word “Physics” is brand new to snooker and only ever used in the “Fine Art” method.
Not to be too dogmatic Monique; I will denote a thousand pound to any Snooker Charity of your choosing if you can show the Steve Davis article (With Date) on “Snooker Physics”.
The Mechanics of the balls and the “Cue Action” plus the introduction of “Physics” in snooker was offered to W/S but they preferred the “Watch Me” and I’ll show you again method.
Steve’s favourite on BBC along with big John has always been “Don’t forget to follow through” though it is now out of fashion for a few years without offering apologises for its origin. Mr Hey You
monique
the same way its said Ronnie wasn't mature in the early 90s, hendrys peak was past by the late 90s. when a player puts his life on hold since he was 13 to be the best he can then he married in 1995 and he became a dad in 1996 that coincided with the start of a new life for him as a man and as a snooker player. he had done that bought the t shirt now it was time to do the things a man with a family does and his game suffered and although he gets it back spasmodically his priorities changed for ever in 1996.
John and Ronnie still had goals in the game by the time they started a family Stephen Realistically hadn't.
yes this is descending in to a era debate.
the question is can dominating be done today answer is yes it can
We may not see a dominant force again for a long time, but I wouldn't rule it out. Ding & Robertson are the standouts at the moment (outside of the big two obviously), and would be the main candidates, but I can't see either dominating for a while yet.
I have one name for you: Luca Brecel. Just wait and see (and, if I'm not too wrong: Enjoy!) :-)
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i detest it when folk who werent even watching snooker a few years ago seem to have the best knowledge of what was going on back then.
Anyone watching the tennis?
And we thought the Dott/Ebbo match was a marathon
If the guys in the 80s were all such grinding hardcases with "guts and guile", etc. How did Alex Higgins and Jimmy White manage to win so many matches? I know Alex had his own safety game which was actually pretty good and some players have said it was a strength of his that was overlooked, but let's face it there's a reason it's not the first thing you think of when you think of him.
I do agree they generally had more determination and strategical strength than today's players but from what I've seen it wasn't as hard and unforgiving as you suggest.
Also the reason I write off Robertson this season, is because he's just become a 1st time World Champ and that often results in someone taking the foot off the gas. And add to that the fact that he's just had a "sprog".
Greg P - At Robertson's Cambridge
'homecoming' afew days ago - Robbo said how determined he was to win the UK Champs & Masters for the first time in his career.
He didn't seem like someone taking his foot off the gas to me.
The Crucible 'curse' of firsttime defending champions is legendary,
chances of Robbo retaining that
are slim - from past patterns.
From the other events - I back Robbo to still win 2 or 3 titles at least during the season.
Which is par course for most top players in recent years.
If any one player was to win say
8 of the 24 major events on the calendar - that would be quite a
surprise in the current climate of
close competitiveness.
If any player can win 5 or 6 events of the 24 tournaments - that might put them top of the
titles list this season.
Hi Dave,
Would like to see somebody dominate again - but it isn't going to happen.
Hendry and Davis were out there and they'll never be another pairing like it. Even when they had families they were still putting away trophies.
Makes me laugh to think how critics will say Higgins and Williams form went off boil when they raised families - should be nonsense - but is true to them. O'Sullivan was having children - but it never got mentioned affecting his form; it was always depression which seem to be his tagline.
To dominate you have to start young and plough on. Ding, Trump, Wenbo have the slightest of chances.
Robertson,Murphy,Selby,possibly Maguire could, realistically pick up a few trophies but are too late to be 'great' players. Their chance has gone.
The rest of top 16, and I use the word loosely - in fact it will be even looser - when the new season begins - are just the odd title every now and again. In fact this lot; Day,Carter,Perry,Dott et al will probably be good with the PTC tour.
It would've been great seeing these new tours 15 years ago run alongside the main tour with Hendry and Davis winning. I wonder whether they would've put as much effort into these smaller tournaments as they would winning world ranking titles?
We'll never know. All i do know is, Higgins, O'Sullivan and Williams had and were close at various points in their careers to getting close to the pair of them.
The latter are all GREAT players, the rest all competitive, and if any of them even got close to that triptych of players, i would be astounded, because none of them are even close at the moment. No domination for me!
Thanks, Joe
Nice use of 'triptych' - the first on this blog, I believe
Ahh all those years of learning to be hack, eh, Dave ;)
Thanks, Joe
PS - Do I win a copy of July Snooker Scene for that? ha!
I'm sick and tired of the "Ronnie fan" tag. At no point did I put Ronnie in the picture anywhere or claim he is better than Hendry.
It is preposterous to claim the field in which a sportsman evolves has no bearing of their capacity to dominate or not. They are not alone out there.
Reanne Evans totally dominates the Ladies snooker: at 24 she's 6 times World Champion, she's unbeaten for 61 matches and nearly 3 seasons. Neither Hendry or Davis ever approached such records. Is she better than them? Of course you will tell me my example is ridiculous. I deliberately chose it to be extreme: Reanne will most probably struggle big time on the MT (and I wish her well) despite dominating the Ladies in a way nobody has dominated the Men because the Ladies field is extremely weak.
During the 1996-2005 era, probably the strongest snooker has known, nobody could dominate for a long period of time because you had the "big four" around and as the way they were named suggest they were 4 outstanding players to compete and they shared most of the titles. Hendry was one of them and his tally shows he certainly wasn't past it. His 1999 WC was probably his best achievement and the best anyone ever did in snooker.
But in the early 90th, to his own admission in many interviews, he felt rarely challenged at all before the quarters in any tournament. And Davis said the same. As I said they still had to have the talent, to win, to put the hours, to have the dedication and they had it to an level no one else showed before and after them in the modern era. But that's not the full story.
So to make it absolutely clear my posts are in no way about "Hendry wasn't that good... ", not at all.
My point is that for a player to be able to dominate he or she must have exceptional talent, mental toughness and dedication AND he or she must somehow be "unique" in the environment where they compete.
In that respect Hendry's career is very significative. In the first half of the 90th he totally dominated the scene because of the player and person he was, in the second half he couldn't dominate anymore. He wasn't less dedicated, he wasn't less talented, he was in the second half of his twenties and that's the age where players peak usuallly, he certainly wasn't a spent force (his 99 WC is evidence of that). What had changed was the field he was competing in: with the opening of the game in 92 and players entering then coming to age, he had to face more and tougher opponents. It didn't stop him winning but he did stop him dominating. Titles were shared.
So as for today, I don't see anyone able to dominate. There are many excellent players, Robertson, Ding, Selby, Carter, Murphy not to mention the "older guard", Higgins, Williams, ROS. But none of the younger players is "exceptional" (or has proven himself exceptional yet) in the way Davis, Hendry or the 1975 trio was. And to be able to stand out in the current field he or she should be truely exceptional as Dave pointed out in his last sentence.
Reanne Evans is a stupid example and another attempt to run down Hendry by a Ronnie fan
Just look at the record books if you want to see who is the best of the modern era and then go away
monique
Hendry was near past it before 2000 Losing 9-0 to marcus campbell. losing 3 times in a season to Tony Drago.
His priorities changed and his GAME Did suffer which opened the door for others like Ronnie thats not to say the Door would have been kicked in anyway but we will never know.
Monique i actually think Hendry could to some extent at his peak dominate snooker today.
Any player is virtually unbeatable when they're on their A game.
Both the regularity with which one can produce their A game and the level of their B game determines the standard of a player.
Hendry could produce his A game consistently from 1990-1997.
After that he still played to a very high standard, but from the 1997 world final, he began to show a slight dip, and to my mind, never regained that super-human standard, certainly not consistently.
Nobody has even come close to producing their A game as consistently since.
The closest would have to be John Higgins, and even though Im a huge O'Sullivan fan, the real battle of greatness is the one between Higgins and O'Sullivan for second and third place.
Well said 830 !!!
Snooker © The Fine Art Method
A secret is wasted if not shared
Dear Mr X @ 4:45pm, Hi Dave.
How are you dear friends! Thanks again mister X for the plug. I think I may call you “P” for Plug or should I get familiar and call you “Pluggy” for short?
Sincerely Pluggy you have given the “Fine Art” method more advertising space than I could have ever have hoped for; and it is all free on the Dave-Den blog.
The present thread on “Who is and was the best player” will always be the blog member’s favourite discussion; sadly the choice is always “Trophy Winners” as opposed to entertainment value to bring back the TV “Sponsors and Viewers”.
A reminder folks that the recent discord and change of “Bosses” was caused by a Ronnie O demand for entertaining snooker, yet that complaint has not had a mention.
To be real folks Television does not need snooker, but professional snooker will die without TV. The lovely game will never die, but how and where do we find and create the next “Snooker Millionaires”? Best Wishes Mister Plug and Thanks again Dave for the posts. Mr Hey You
I understand Dave, about not wildly speculating. Personally, I would be stunned if Higgins were to be found guilty, as I can't comprehend that someone of his character and class would do it.
Totally agree with you being sceptical about " anyone can win a title". However, I am not sceptical about the strength in depth, because as you say yourself, the qualifying standard is notably high and there are just more players that have sustained scoring power now.
As a Ronnie fan I accept he is not the greatest, but bristle at the suggestion that his A-Game could not have beaten Hendry at his best.
Look at the depth of talent in tennis and golf, yet they got a Federer and a Tiger. There has been no period of domination this last decade (Williams got closest in 2009-2003) because the best player is inconsistent! No-one else can dominate when there is a player better than you out there. The game is now drawing from a pool of a billion people rather than 60 million so eventually there will be a player good enough and dedicated enough to dominate, and it's odds on Dennis Taylor won't be able to pronounce the name...
Oddly enough Betty, Dennis is one the few commentators that seems to be able to pronounce Ken Dohertys' name.
After two decades playing as a pro, he is wrongly called Dockerty by so many Brits.
Take note folks. Theres no K in Doherty. Its Do-HER-ty.
Are you listening John Virko?
Losing a single match heavily doesn't prove a player is "past it". It happens to all of them one day or another and proves nothing except they had a bad day in office.
Hendry certainly wasn't "past it" at 27 (1996). At 30(1999) he won the WC having beaten the strongest oppostion he could possibly face. At 33 he was WC runner-up, losing only in the decider, making 4 tons, and having beaten ROS and Doherty on his way to the final. At 38 he was still World N°1 (2006/07 season)
Only there is a difference between being the best and being dominant. For the many of you who apparantly can't read let me state it again: Hendry IS the best player the game has known. However, even being the best, he could no more dominate in the 1996-2005 decade because the field around him and the opposition had become stronger and he had 3 serious challengers (at least).
For Mr Hey You, thank you for the insults on the other thread). Apparantly you can't read neither: my point precisely was that despite being only at the level of a very good amateur, Reanne dominates the ladies game in a way neither Hendry or Davis ever did dominate the MT precisely because she competes in a very weak field there. I never claimed that Reanne was the next big thing in snooker. She will struggle big time on the MT - she knows that - and it will be interesting to see if with much tougher opposition she will be able to raise her game, but she is certainly not a top pro at this moment in time. I said it myself: it is an extreme example but it proves my point, you can be average and still dominate a field, and you can be outstanding and even the best and still not be able to dominate because you are not alone out there.
Your point is a load of rubbish and thats what most people on here seem to be pointing out to you. These RonnieO fans are all the same!
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