The 1992 World Snooker Championship (also referred to as the 1992 Embassy World Snooker Championship for the purposes of sponsorship) was a professional rankingsnooker tournament that took place between 18 April and 4 May 1992 at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, England.
John Parrott was the defending champion but he lost 12–13 to Alan McManus in the quarter-finals and fell to the Crucible curse, becoming another champion unable to defend his first world title.
Stephen Hendry was the eventual winner, after defeating Jimmy White 18–14 in the final. At one point White led by 14–8, but Hendry then won 10 successive frames to secure his second World Championship title.[1] The tournament was sponsored by cigarette manufacturer Embassy.
Overview
The World Snooker Championship is an annual professional snooker tournament organised by the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA).[2] Founded in the late 19th century by British Army soldiers stationed in India,[3] the cue sport was popular in the British Isles.[2] However, in the modern era, which started in 1969 when the World Championship reverted to a knockout format,[4] it has become increasingly popular worldwide, especially in East and Southeast Asian nations such as China, Hong Kong and Thailand.[5][6][7]
Joe Davis won the first World Championship in 1927, hosted by the Billiards Association and Control Council, the final match being held at Camkin's Hall in Birmingham, England.[8][9] The 1991 championship featured 32 professional players competing in one-on-one snooker matches in a single-elimination format, each round being played over a pre-determined number of frames , and each match divided into two or more session s containing a set number of frames.[10] These competitors in the main tournament were selected using a combination of the top players in the snooker world rankings and the winners of a pre-tournament qualification stage.[11] The top 16 players in the world rankings automatically qualified for the event, the remaining 16 players coming through the qualification rounds.[11] It was the sixteenth consecutive World Snooker Championship to be held at the Crucible, the first tournament there having taken place in 1977.[12] The defending champion in 1992 was John Parrott, who had defeated Jimmy White 18–11 in the final of the 1991 World Snooker Championship.[13] The tournament was sponsored by cigarette brand Embassy, and was also referred to as the Embassy World Snooker Championship.[14][15]
Prize fund
The breakdown of prize money for this year is shown below:[16][17]
Winner: £150,000
Runner-up: £90,000
Semi-final: £45,000
Quarter-final: £22,500
Last 16: £12,000
Last 32: £6,500
Last 48: £5,000
Last 64: £3,000
Last 96: £1,375
Last 128: £750
Last 155: £500
Qualifying stage highest break: £4,000
Televised stage highest break: £14,000
Televised stage maximum break: £100,000
Total: £850,000
Tournament summary
Qualifying
There were nine rounds matches across the pre-qualifying and qualifying stages.[18] The pre-qualifying competition, which had four rounds with matches played as the best of 11 frames, started on 22 May 1991 at three snooker clubs: Frames Plaze in Sheffield, Spencers in Bolton, and the Royal Hampshire Snooker Lodge in Aldershot.[19][18] The main qualifying stage was held at Preston Guild Hall from 18 to 29 March 1992.[20] Matches at Preston were the best of 19 frames.[21]
In the first of the rounds after pre-qualifying, eight-time champion Fred Davis lost 1-10 to first-season professional Peter Daubney.[11] On his 43rd birthday, two-time champion Alex Higgins defeated Wayne Murphy 10-3.[11] The 1974 runner-up Graham Miles misread the date of his match against Sean Lynskey and failed to appear, giving Lynskey a walkover.[11] Chris Brooks had died in a car crash earlier in the year, which gave his scheduled opponent Bill Werbeniuk a walkover to the second round, in which Werbeniuk did not turn up to his match against David Taylor.[11] Higgins defeated Paul Gibson 10-6 after they had been level at 4-4, while Bjørn L'Orange whitewashed three-time champion John Spencer.[11] In the third round, Higgins was 4-5 down to Alan McManus at the end of their first session and lost 7-10 despite having led 6-5.[11]Stepehn Murphy compiled three century breaks as he beat Eugene Hughes 10-5.[11] David Taylor lost 5-10 to 1980 champion Cliff Thorburn in a match that lasted over eight hours.[11] In the fourth round, Thorburn lost in a match that took eight hours and 50 minutes, 7-10 to Chris Small.[11]Kirk Stevens, twice a world championship semi-finalist, defeated Joe Swail 10-7.[11]
Dean Reynolds's toral of 38 point s in the eigth frame against Jim Wych was the lowest ever recored in a frame of professional snooker in which all balls were potted.[31]
Steve Davis' 4–10 defeat to qualifier Ebdon was his first loss in the opening round since 1982. It also ended his nine-year streak of reaching at least the semi-finals of the tournament.[33] Davis led 4–3 but Ebdon won the next seven frames.[31]
Steve James led Dene O'Kane 5–0 but O'Kane recovered to 4–5 at the end of the first session.[31] James went on to lead 9–6, but O'Kane then took four consecutive frames to secure victory.[31]
Chris Small, who had won eight matches to emerge from the qualifying tournament, made a break of 110 during the first session against Doug Mountjoy, and having been a frame behind at 4–5, went on to win 10–7, following his eight wins in the qualifying tournament.[31]
In all, eight of the sixteen seeded players exited the tournament in the first round. This did not happen again until 2012.[34]
Second round
Wattana trailed Hendry 6–10 after their second session, but then took four of the next five frames.[35] Hendry won the next two frames to secure his place in the quarter-finals at 13–10.[35]
Wych reached the quarter-finals for the first time since his Crucible debut in 1980.[35] He won eight consecutive frmes from 5–6 behind against Thorne.[35]
When White and Robidoux were level at 6–6, White accidentally touched the cue ball while lining up a shot, causing a foul , and Robidoux went on to win the frame.[35] The pair were level again at 10–10.[35] White won the next two frames but lost the next of a respotted black , before completing a 13–11 victory.[35] White remarked afterward that "I never found my game. I'm playing so well in practice, maybe I got complacent."[35]
Hendry won all seven frames in the first session against Griffiths, and added the first three frames of the second session, finishing that session with a 12–2 lead.[36]
Semi-finals
Stephen Hendry set a record in the semi-final, when he beat Terry Griffiths 16–4. This was the biggest semi-final victory at the World Championship, until it was superseded by Ronnie O'Sullivan in 2004 when he defeated Hendry 17–4.[37]
Final
The final between Stephen Hendry and Jimmy White was played as the best-of-35 frames across four sessions on 3 and 4 May.[10] Hendry trailed 8–14 during the third session, before winning ten consecutive frames to take his second world title with an 18–14 victory.[38]
Hendry's break of 105 in the first frame was the first century break in the opening frame of a world championship final.[39]
Snooker journalist and historian David Hendon later wrote that at "at 12–6 it seemed as if White’s coronation as world champion was guaranteed" and that this still seemed very likely when the score reached 14–8.[40]
During the 24th frame, Hendry potted a brown off the spot from the last red and gained position to pot the yellow; in 2020 he called this "one of the best shots of my career".[38] Brendan Cooper, author of Deep Pockets: Snooker and the Meaning of Life (2023) described the shot as "a quintessential moment of ice-cold Hendry guts."[41] Hendry went on to cler the table and win the frame; Cooper dscribed this as "the beginning of the end" for White.[41]Clive Everton wrote that while Hendry "kept his nerve and hs resolve", White was "strangely unfocused".[42]
Hendry compiled three century breaks during the concluding four frames and won 18–14.[38]
The final attracted 11.6million teleision viewers, the highest viewing figure for the champonship final for six years.[43] This match was reshown on BBC Two on 24 April 2020, one of the "Crucible Classics" shown in place of the 2020 World Snooker Championship which was postponed because of the coronavirus pandemic.[38]
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).[16][44][45][46]
↑ "John Higgins Eyes More Crucible Titles". The Telegraph. London. 5 May 2009. Archived from the original on 30 April 2010. Retrieved 13 April 2020. the modern era, which began in 1969 when the World Championship became a knockout event.
↑ "The Rise Of China". wst.tv. World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association. 26 February 2018. Archived from the original on 19 April 2018. Retrieved 13 March 2019.
↑ Turner, Chris. "Maximum Breaks". cajt.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk. Chris Turner's Snooker Archive. Archived from the original on 10 February 2013. Retrieved 2 April 2010.
Everton, Clive (1993). The Embassy Book of World Snooker. London: Bloomsbury. ISBN978-0-7475-1610-1.
Everton, Clive (2012). Black Farce and Cue Ball Wizards. Edinburgh: Mainstream. ISBN978-1-78057-568-1.
Harris, Luke J. (3 January 2020). "21. Snooker and billiards". In Nauright, John; Zipp, Sarah (eds.). Routledge Handbook of Global Sport. Abingdon: Taylor & Francis. pp.227–237. ISBN978-1-138-88723-7. Archived from the original on 5 September 2020. Retrieved 3 September 2020.
Hendon, David (2025). Pots of Gold: a History of Snooker (Kindleed.). London: Swift Press. ISBN978-1-80075-353-2.
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Jimmy White (ENG) (147)
Stephen Hendry (SCO)
