2002 World Snooker Championship

The World Snooker Championship is the official world championship of the game of professional snooker, organised by World Snooker. Founded in the late 19th century by British Army soldiers stationed in India, the sport was popular in the British Isles. The championship featured 32 professional players competing in one-on-one snooker matches in a single elimination format, each played over several . The 32 competitors in the main tournament were selected using a combination of the top players in the world snooker rankings and a pre-tournament qualification stage. Joe Davis won the first World Championship in 1927, the final match being held in Camkin's Hall, Birmingham, England. Since 1977, the event has been held in the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, England. Format The championship was held from 20 April and 6 May 2002 at the Crucible Theatre, the 26th consecutive year that the tournament was held at the venue. There were 120 entrants from the tour, and the competition's main draw had 32 participants. • Winner: £260,000 • Runner-up: £152,000 • Semi-final: £76,000 • Quarter-final: £38,000 • Last 16: £21,000 • Last 32: £14,500 • Last 48: £11,000 • Last 64: £6,825 • Last 80: £5,500 • Last 96: £4,150 • Last 128: £1,185 • Qualification highest break: £2,250 • Main stage highest break: £20,000 • Qualification maximum break: £5,000 • Main stage maximum break: £147,000 • Total: £1,615,770 ==Tournament summary==

First round (pictured in 2011) deliberately snapped his cue after his 2–10 defeat to Jimmy White. The first round was played as the best-of-19 frames matches, held over two sessions. The defending champion Ronnie O'Sullivan's opening match against Drew Henry was delayed for 25 minutes due to a problem with the scoreboard. The first six were shared, but from 3–3 O'Sullivan won six in a row to lead 9–3, and won the match at 10–5. Quinten Hann became the first Australian player to reach the second round since Eddie Charlton in 1989. Hann, a WEPF World Eightball Championship winner, had smashed the pack of reds open when breaking off in the sixth frame, from which Paul Hunter made a 77 break and took the frame. An uncommon shot, commentator Dennis Taylor described it as "bordering on ungentlemanly conduct". Seven-time winner Stephen Hendry recorded a break of 130 in frame three of his match with Shaun Murphy and led 6–3 at the end of their first session. He won the last frame with a break of 111 as he completed a 10–4 victory. James Wattana won only one frame of his match against John Higgins. Higgins made breaks of 109, 136 and 116 in winning 10–1. Peter Ebdon led Michael Judge 5–4 at the end of their first session then took five frames in a row to win 10–4. Dominic Dale, who had been ill with food poisoning in the days before his match with Jimmy White, accused White of making a , pretended to go to sleep in his chair during the final frame, and after losing 2–10, snapped his own and threw it out of his dressing-room window. This match and the contest between Hunter and Hann which were being played simultaneously, were interrupted by a streaker wearing a Sven-Göran Eriksson mask. Second round (pictured in 2011) won his second-round match with a . The second round featured matches played as the best-of-25 frames held over up to three sessions. O'Sullivan defeated Robert Milkins 13–2 in only two sessions. When the third session was scheduled to be played O'Sullivan visited a chiropractor. O'Sullivan said "I've got an imbalance in my body and I find it hard to walk, among other things." Doherty won eight frames in a row to go from 3–7 behind to 11–7 ahead against Mark King. King forced the match to a decider, which was won by Doherty 13–12. Higgins notched up five century breaks and defeated Dott 13–2. Ebdon and Joe Perry shared the frames in their first session and tied 4–4. Ebdon won seven of the next eight frames to lead 11–5 after the second session, and later won 13–7. White played Matthew Stevens and lost 3–13 with a . In the eighth and final frame in the first session, White had missed a on the , and as the returned towards him, hit it with such force that both balls were both forced off the table. World number one Mark Williams was defeated 9–13 by world number 19 Anthony Hamilton. Williams commented that, despite being ranked number one in the world, his performances were not good enough: "I'm sick with the way I performed. I don't enjoy playing that bad but I seem to play like that fairly often. I don't know what it is." Quarter-finals (pictured in 2012) reached his third semi-final in a row with a 13–7 win over John Higgins. The quarter-finals were played as best-of-25 frames matches, held over three sessions. During his second session match again Lee, O'Sullivan missed a shot on the , throwing his cue stick in the air in frustration. He was unable to catch it, damaging the table, which had to be fixed before the next session. With the scores tied at 10-10, O'Sullivan made breaks of 83, 102 and 113 to win the match 13–10. Ebdon commented that he preferred the longer frame matches and cited his physical condition as having prepared him well for the match. Semi-finals (pictured in 2003) defeated the defending champion Ronnie O'Sullivan 17–13 to reach his ninth World Championship final. The semi-finals were played as best-of-33 frames matches, held over four sessions between 3 and 4 May. John Dee for the Daily Telegraph commented that O'Sullivan had "blown hot and cold" during interviews, and the comments surprised him. O'Sullivan experienced the Crucible curse as he lost 13–17 to Hendry. O'Sullivan had started the match with a break of 115 in the opening frame and led 5–3 at the end of the first session. In the second session, Hendry moved into a 9–7 lead, with breaks of 125, 122 and 124. The third session ended with the players tied at 12–12. In the final session Hendry took a 16–12 lead and went on to win 17–13. After the match, Ebdon commented that he "can't believe he won", and that he felt "sorry" for Stevens, because he knew "how he feels right now". Ebdon took the first four frames of the match to lead 4–0 at the first mid-session interval, but Hendry pulled back the next four frames to end the first session tied at 4–4. By the end of the second session, Ebdon was again four frames ahead at 10–6, and then took the first frame of the third session to lead 11–6, but Hendry fought back and levelled the score at 12–12 by the end of the third session. The Guardian's Sean Ingle described the final as "one of the sporting highlights of the year." == Main draw ==

Shown below are the results for each round. The numbers in parentheses beside some of the players are their seeding ranks. Players in bold denote match winners: == Qualifying ==

Following amateur pre-qualifying, seven rounds of qualifying were played at the Manhattan Club, Harrogate. After Harrogate there were a further five rounds of qualifying at Telford International Centre. The final qualifying round was held at Newport on 16 and 17 March 2002. Willie Thorne, in his 27th world championship, lost in the seventh round of amateur pre-qualifying to Stephen Croft. Thorne was the only entrant in the qualifiers to have played at the first Crucible finals in 1977. Three-times semi-finalist Tony Knowles lost 3–5 to Rob James in the third round. During her fifth-round defeat, Kelly Fisher became the first female player to compile a century break at the World Championship, making a 106. Amateur pre-qualifying Round 1 The first round of qualifying took place in Telford as best-of-19 frames matches. Round 2 There were 32 players eliminated in the second round of qualifying. 1986 Champion Joe Johnson was 4–1 ahead of Ricky Walden but then lost a contact lens and, with impaired vision, ended the first session 4–5 behind. He went on to win 10–5. Round 3–6 There were 16 players eliminated in each of rounds 3 to 6 of qualifying. Johnson experienced problems with his vision, as he had in the previous round, and retired from his third round match against Ryan Day when 1–5 behind. The final qualifying round saw John Parrott progress to the Crucible stage for the 19th consecutive year; six-times former champion Steve Davis failed to reach the Crucible for only the second time in 24 seasons. Murphy, ranked 169th and aged 19, was both the lowest-ranked and youngest player to reach the final stages in 2002. == Century breaks ==

There were 68 century breaks in the main stages of the event, which was at the time a record total. It was equalled in 2007 and superseded in 2009. The highest break of the tournament was 145, made by Matthew Stevens during his quarter-final match against Higgins. • 145, 135, 113, 105, 105, 105, 101 Matthew Stevens • 141, 134, 132, 130, 126, 126, 125, 124, 122, 116, 113, 113, 111, 108, 104, 100 Stephen Hendry • 138, 134, 127, 111, 108, 103, 102, 101, 100, 100 Peter Ebdon • 136, 124, 116, 112, 109, 107, 105, 101 John Higgins • 136, 119 Stephen Lee • 135, 101 Dave Harold • 134, 109 Stuart Bingham • 134, 109, 100 Joe Perry • 134 Alan McManus • 132, 129, 115, 115, 113, 110, 110, 102 Ronnie O'Sullivan • 120, 117, 106, 105 Ken Doherty • 109, 106 Anthony Hamilton • 107 Drew Henry • 102 Michael Judge • 101 Paul Hunter ==Notes==