UK Snooker Championship

The UK Championship is a professional snooker tournament, the second biggest tournament after the World Championship.

The UK Championship was first held in 1977 as the United Kingdom Snooker Championship, an event open only to British residents. Patsy Fagan won, beating Doug Mountjoy by 12 frames to 9, to win £2000.

The rules were changed in 1984 to allow all professionals to enter (although until 2005, only players from Britain and Ireland had ever won the event), and it was granted ranking status. It carries one and a half times as many ranking points as all other tournaments, with the exception of the World Championship.

The tournament has seen many memorable finals. In 1977 and 1979 it provided Patsy Fagan and John Virgo, respectively, with their first and only major tournament wins. In 1980, it was Steve Davis's first of his 73 professional tournament wins. In 1981, the Davis-Terry Griffiths final set the stage for four more final battles between Davis and Griffiths that were to dominate the rest of the season before their unexpected losses in the first round of the 1982 World Championship.

In 1983, Alex Higgins beat Davis 16-15 after having trailed 7-0 at the end of the first session, a loss for Davis that was to prefigure and perhaps contribute to his even more memorable loss of the 1985 World Snooker Championship final to Dennis Taylor. In 1985, Willie Thorne, then on the brink of emerging as a major force to be reckoned with in the game, led Davis 13-10 at the start of the evening session, only to miss a simple blue off its spot and lose 16-14. The victory regenerated Davis's confidence after his devastating World Championship loss; Thorne, on the other hand, never won another ranking title.

In 1988, Doug Mountjoy, widely viewed as just making up the numbers against the rising Stephen Hendry, produced a stunning display of character and ability to win 16-12 and become the second-oldest ever winner of a ranking event; even more astonishingly, he was to win the Mercantile Credit Classic the following month to become one of only four players ever to win two ranking tournaments in a row.

Stephen Hendry's 1989 win prefigured his decade of dominance similar to the one prefigured by Davis's win in 1980; its significance was emphasised by the fact that the losing finalist was Davis himself. Hendry's 16-15 win the following year, over Davis again, spoke to his unique qualities of nerve. The Hendry/Ken Doherty final of 1994 is considered by many players as one of Hendry's best performance, as he won 10-5 making 7 century breaks along the way, six of which were in the span of eight frames played. Doherty has appeared in two more memorable finals.

The 2001 final is important as Doherty was on the receiving end of the worst loss in UK Championship final history (since it became a 19 frame final in 1993), as Ronnie O'Sullivan (who, in 1993, became the youngest ever winner of the event, and indeed any event, at just 17 years of age) eased to a 10-1 win. Astonishingly, just three years later Stephen Maguire repeated the feat against David Gray. 2002 was Doherty's last UK final to date, and was the best and most dramatic as he was edged 10-9 by Mark Williams.

The 2005 tournament saw Davis reach his first ranking tournament final for almost two years at the age of 48 (and make his highest break in tournament play for 23 years) before losing 10-6 to 18-year-old Ding Junhui in the final that featured the widest age gap between finalists in professional tournament history. The following year, Peter Ebdon won the title and, in doing so, became the first and only man to have both won and lost a World and a UK Championship final to Stephen Hendry.

The 2007 final was won by Ronnie O'Sullivan for the fourth time, again with some ease, winning 10-2 in the final against Stephen Maguire. The tournament was also notable for the longest televised frame in history between Marco Fu and Mark Selby at 77 minutes and Ronnie O'Sullivan's maximum 147 break in the deciding frame of the semi-final.

The tournament has had many different sponsors over the years including Coral, Tennents, StormSeal, Royal Liver Assurance, Liverpool Victoria, PowerHouse, Travis Perkins and is currently sponsored by Maplin Electronics. It is one of the tournaments televised by the BBC and it is held towards the end of each calendar year. Prize money in 2005 was £500,000 ($966,549) with the winner receiving £70,000 ($135,316).

Winners

Year     Winner                      Runner-up                    Final score        Venue              Season

Super Crystalate UK Championship (non-ranking)

1977    Patsy Fagan            Doug Mountjoy            12 - 9               Blackpool         1977/78

Coral UK Championship (non-ranking)

1978    Doug Mountjoy       David Taylor               15 - 9               Preston 1978/79

1979    John Virgo               Terry Griffiths               14 – 13            Preston 1979/80

1980    Steve Davis              Alex Higgins                 16 - 6               Preston 1980/81

1981    Steve Davis              Terry Griffiths               16 - 3               Preston 1981/82

1982    Terry Griffiths  Alex Higgins                16 - 15             Preston 1982/83

1983    Alex Higgins             Steve Davis                  16 - 15             Preston 1983/84

Coral UK Championship (ranking)

1984    Steve Davis               Alex Higgins                 16 - 8               Preston 1984/85

1985    Steve Davis               Willie Thorne                16 - 14             Preston 1985/86

Tennents UK Championship (ranking)

1986    Steve Davis               Neal Foulds                  16 - 7               Preston 1986/87

1987    Steve Davis               Jimmy White                 16 - 14             Preston 1987/88

1988    Doug Mountjoy        Stephen Hendry            16 - 12             Preston 1988/89

Stormseal UK Championship (ranking)

1989    Stephen Hendry      Steve Davis                  16 - 12             Preston 1989/90

1990    Stephen Hendry      Steve Davis                  16 - 15             Preston 1990/91

UK Championship (ranking)

1991    John Parrott             Jimmy White                 16 - 13             Preston 1991/92

Royal Liver Assurance UK Championship (ranking)

1992    Jimmy White             John Parrott                  16 - 9               Preston 1992/93

1993    Ronnie O'Sullivan   Stephen Hendry            10 - 6               Preston 1993/94

1994    Stephen Hendry      Ken Doherty                10 - 5               Preston 1994/95

1995    Stephen Hendry       Peter Ebdon                 10 - 3               Preston 1995/96

UK Championship (ranking)

1996    Stephen Hendry       John Higgins                 10 - 9               Preston 1996/97

Liverpool Victoria UK Championship (ranking)

1997    Ronnie O'Sullivan   Stephen Hendry            10 - 6               Preston 1997/98

1998    John Higgins            Matthew Stevens          10 - 6               Bournemouth    1998/99

1999    Mark Williams Matthew Stevens          10 - 8               Bournemouth    1999/00

2000    John Higgins            Mark Williams  10 - 4               Bournemouth    2000/01

UK Championship (ranking)

2001    Ronnie O'Sullivan    Ken Doherty                10 - 1               York                2001/02

PowerHouse UK Championship (ranking)

2002    Mark Williams Ken Doherty                10 - 9               York                2002/03

Travis Perkins UK Championship (ranking)

2003    Matthew Stevens      Stephen Hendry            10 - 8               York                2003/04

2004    Stephen Maguire      David Gray                   10 - 1               York                2004/05

2005    Ding Junhui               Steve Davis                  10 - 6               York                2005/06

Maplin UK Championship (ranking)

2006    Peter Ebdon               Stephen Hendry            10 - 6               York                2006/07

2007    Ronnie O'Sullivan    Stephen Maguire          10 - 2               Telford             2007/08

2008    Shaun Murphy Marco Fu                     10 - 9               Telford             2008/09

Pukka Pies UK Championship (ranking)

2009                                                                                                    Telford             2009/10

Eurosport also provide coverage of the event.