1993 World Snooker Championship Explained

Tournament Name:	Embassy World Snooker Championship
Venue:	Crucible Theatre
Location:	Sheffield
Country:	England
Organisation:	WPBSA
Format:	Ranking event
Total Prize Fund:	£1,000,000
Winners Share:	£175,000
Highest Break:	(144)
Score:	18–5
Previous:	1992
Next:	1994

The 1993 World Snooker Championship (also referred to as the 1993 Embassy World Snooker Championship for the purposes of sponsorship) was a professional ranking snooker tournament that took place between 17 April and 3 May 1993 at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, England.

Stephen Hendry won his third World Championship title by defeating Jimmy White 18–5 in the final with a .^[1] The tournament was sponsored by cigarette manufacturer Embassy.

Tournament summary

• Ronnie O'Sullivan made his World Championship debut at the age of 17 years and 5 months, making him the second-youngest player since Stephen Hendry in 1986.^[2] O'Sullivan lost against Alan McManus 7–10 in the first round.^[3]
• Spencer Dunn made his Crucible debut, after winning eleven qualifying matches—a tournament record—to secure his place in the main draw. He defeated Ian Bullimore 5–1, Colin Mitchell 5–1, Elliott Clark 5–4, Neil Selman 5–1, Julian Goodyear 5–1, Kieran McAlinden 5–4, Mehmet Husnu 5–2, Bill Oliver 10–2, Colin Roscoe 10–7, Dave Harold 10–7, and Mark Bennett 10–9, before his first-round match against Nigel Bond. Fellow debutants O'Sullivan and John Giles both won ten qualifying matches to reach the Crucible stages.
• The other debutants this year were Brian Morgan, Joe Swail, Karl Payne, Shaun Mellish and Stephen O'Connor. The high number of debutants was partially a result of the governing body's decision to begin pre-qualifying at the beginning of the season. Of this year's rookies, only Morgan, O'Sullivan and Swail ever qualified for another World Championship.
• In frame three of his first-round match, Hendry compiled the 250th century break at the Crucible.^[4]
• 1981 runner-up and former Masters and twice UK Champion, Doug Mountjoy, played in his last World Championship main draw. He had appeared at every World Championship since the event moved to the Crucible in 1977, a run of 17 consecutive appearances. Mountjoy reached the second round, falling 6–13 to Jimmy White. Weeks later, Mountjoy had an operation to remove his left lung after being diagnosed with stage 2 lung cancer.
• Dennis Taylor's 13–11 second-round victory over Terry Griffiths set a record for the longest best-of-25-frames match in professional play at almost 800 minutes.
• James Wattana of Thailand became the first player from the Far East to reach the semi-finals of the event.^[5]
• Hendry's 18–5 victory over White was only the third time since the championship moved to the Crucible, and to date the last, that the title was settled in the afternoon with a . The previous two were in 1983 and 1989.^[6]

Prize fund

The breakdown of prize money for this year is shown below:^{[7] [8]}

• Winner: £175,000
• Runner-up: £105,000
• Semi-final: £52,000
• Quarter-final: £26,000
• Last 16: £14,000
• Last 32: £8,000
• Highest break: £14,400
• Maximum break

£100,000

• Total: £1,000,000

Main draw

Shown below are the results for each round. The numbers in parentheses beside some of the players are their seeding ranks (each championship has 16 seeds and 16 qualifiers).^{[7] [9] [10] [11]}

Century breaks

There were 35 century breaks in the championship,^[12] a new record, beating the 31 centuries of 1991. The highest break of the event was a 144 made by Steve Davis.^[13]

• 144 Steve Davis
• 139, 122, 101 Nigel Bond
• 138, 106 Steve James
• 136, 129, 128, 126, 124, 123, 113, 110 Stephen Hendry
• 133 Terry Griffiths
• 124, 108, 100, 100 Neal Foulds
• 122, 102 John Parrott

• 121 Martin Clark
• 112 Alan McManus
• 110, 104, 104, 103 James Wattana
• 108, 105, 104 Jimmy White
• 108, 104 Willie Thorne
• 105 Peter Ebdon
• 104, 101 Gary Wilkinson

Notes and References

1. Web site: Turner. Chris. World Professional Championship. https://web.archive.org/web/20130416080933/http://www.cajt.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/world.html. 16 April 2013. cajt.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk. Chris Turner's Snooker Archive. 6 March 2011.
2. News: World Snooker: Stephen Hendry wins Crucible qualifier. BBC Sport. 10 June 2012.
3. News: 1993: White trounced by Hendry. BBC Sport. 10 June 2012. 18 April 2003.
4. Book: Downer, Chris. Crucible Almanac. 2012. 161.
5. News: Ebdon ousts holder. Dee. John. 27 April 2006. 10 June 2012. The Daily Telegraph. London.
6. News: Quick-fire win confirms that O'Sullivan is in class of his own. Everton. Clive. 6 May 2008. 10 June 2012. The Guardian. London.
7. Web site: World Championship 1993. Global Snooker. 6 March 2011. https://web.archive.org/web/20110310183920/http://www.global-snooker.com/professional-snooker-tournaments-archive-world-championship-1993.asp. 10 March 2011. dead.
8. Book: Downer, Chris. Crucible Almanac. 2012. 130.
9. Web site: 1993 World Championships Results. Snooker Database. 6 March 2011. 7 October 2011. https://web.archive.org/web/20111007102813/http://www.snookerdatabase.co.uk/EventResults.aspx?EventKey=19. dead.
10. Web site: Embassy World Championship. https://web.archive.org/web/20130124071753/http://www.snookerscene.co.uk/page.php?id=36. 24 January 2013. Snooker Scene. 14 June 2012.
11. Book: Downer, Chris. Crucible Almanac. 2012. 36–37.
12. Book: Downer, Chris. Crucible Almanac. 2012. 148.
13. Web site: Crucible Centuries . Snooker.org . 29 October 2011 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20110523045039/http://www.snooker.org/plr/wc_centuries.shtml . 23 May 2011.