The decade has come to a close and since 2010, snooker has seen tremendous growth as well as the emergence of young talent who has since thrived over the 10 year period. Let’s take a look at some of the notable moments throughout the decade.
2010
The Thunder from Down Under makes his mark as he wins the World Championship. This was the start of his successful venture this decade as one of snooker’s best where he claimed 12 ranking titles. This year also saw Barry Hearn take over the commercial arm of snooker (there will be a post about this) where total prize fund has multiplied and the number of ranking events soared.
2011
Enter Judd Trump – perhaps the most promising of young talent to emerge; Trump went on to make the World Championship final as well as win the UK title. We were also introduced to ‘naughty snooker’ – a style of exhibition shots where you try and guess how many cushions are used to get into position.
2012-13
Ronnie O’Sullivan becomes 5-time Champion of the World. This included arguably his best performance at WSC in 2012 then taking a whole year off and, in his own words, stealing the World Championship again in 2013. 2012 saw the retirement of 90s king: Stephen Hendry.
2014-17
Selby’s era – winning 3 World Championships in four years, 10 of Selby’s 16 ranking titles this decade came from this four-year period alone. One of the shining standout players of this decade, Selby reigned at rank No. 1 for a length of time that is comparable to Hendry and Davis.
Robertson makes 100 centuries in a season in 2014. In 2015, Stuart Bingham was also able to secure a memorable win at the WSC as he became the oldest winner since Ray Reardon. The Home Nations was branded in 2016 and this year saw the retirement of Steve Davis after a 38 year career.
2018
The Class of ’92 show that age is but a number as Higgins makes his second consecutive World final and Williams wins his third world title, 15 years after his second. During this time, O’Sullivan has had some of his best seasons with multiple ranking titles – this included winning a record 7th UK Championship, 19th Triple Crown and levelling with Hendry at 36 ranking titles. A lot of players started using a new type of chalk called ‘Taom’ which is supposed to reduce kicks.
2019
O’Sullivan makes 1000 centuries and Trump turns into the player we all knew he was capable of – this included 5 ranking titles and 2 Triple Crowns. Yan Bingtao wins first ranking title at age 19. The Coral Cup Series is introduced (Grand Prix, Players and Tour Championship). Selby takes over 6 minutes on a single shot.
The increase in the number of ranking events can be aided by snooker’s growing popularity in China, which now houses a number of high ticket ranking tournaments. With this high popularity, we have seen an emergence of young talent from China (more so in the latter half of the decade) which most expect to dominate the game going forward. Given this prediction, it won’t be an easy task – 13 out of 20 ranking events in 2018/19 were won by players in the UK (all from England) and only 1 from Asia (but that doesn’t count because it was the Shootout). This number was 16/20 in 2017/18.
These are all just to name a few. What have been your top highlights from the past decade? And what are you looking forward to/hoping will happen in the next 10 years?