And so, another season goes by as we fail to see a maiden champion break the ever elusive ‘Crucible Curse’. While it might seem like a phrase that’s been overused and run into the ground, the proof is in the pudding as we all must continue to wait and see if the magical forces that surround this phenomenon ever allow a first-time winner to see the light of day.
For those unaware or new to snooker, the Crucible Curse refers to the occurrence of a first-time World Champion being unable to successfully defend their position in the following year. This dates back to the beginnings of the Crucible in 1977, where only two individuals out of the twenty-one WSC winners were able to make the successive final.
The first of those individuals was the surprise champion of 1986, Joe Johnson, who beat Steve Davis 18-12 to lift the trophy. Unbeknownst to Johnson, who was just hoping to progress past the first round due to a poor season following his WSC win, he became the closest to ever break the Crucible Curse as he reached the final once again where Davis exacted his revenge with an 18-14 victory.
No one would ever come closer than Johnson. Yet. The second player to come close was 1997 champion, Ken Doherty who performed very well to disrupt Stephen Hendry’s string of consecutive world titles in the 1990s. Despite reaching the finals once again with victories over Stephen Lee, Matthew Stevens and Mark Williams, a very talented John Higgins had something to say about the Crucible Curse as he pushed past Doherty by the same score-line he had won with the year prior.
Speaking of Higgins, how did the players that most consider among the all-time greats fare when it came to their attempts at the curse? Higgins and O’Sullivan both reached the semi-finals in their following WSCs but fell short against their budding opponents. O’Sullivan contested an epic against Hendry in 2002, while Higgins lost to Williams in 1999. On the other hand, Williams lost in the deciding frame against Joe Swail in 2001 to also fall victim to the Crucible Curse.
What about Davis? Actually, Davis succumbed to the Crucible Curse in one of the most shocking defeats of the 1980s, as he got hammered by Tony Knowles in the first round by a 10-1 score-line. This unexpected loss came off the back of an 18 month period of dominance, in which Davis had claimed the UK and Masters in that season hence, being denied the full Triple Crown. Davis did however deny three opponents from breaking the Crucible Curse through his 1980s supremacy.
That leaves Hendry – what happened there? Again, Hendry was hot coming off his best ever season in 1990/91 (click here to read about that) where he won five ranking titles that season and it didn’t seem like anything was going to stop him from winning the world title as well. Enter Steve James in the quarter-finals. Hendry was in the lead for most of this match at 11-9, until James reeled off four frames in a row to put a stop in Hendry’s tracks.
Oddly enough, maiden champions often don’t have the best track record when it comes to making it far in the following year. Whether it’s the pressure or the bizarre forces that surround this ‘curse’, it just seems to have its effect on those that come before it. Five of the first-time champions didn’t make it past round 1, while a total of thirteen didn’t make it past the quarter-finals. That means only 28% of first-time champions have made it to the one-table setup, cutting this number by more than half for those that reached the final.
As to whether the Crucible Curse will ever be broken…I honestly think that it will happen one day. I’m just not sure it will be anytime soon. And I think the player that accomplishes it might be on the tour right now, but just hasn’t hit their peak levels just yet. I reckon it’ll be someone that hasn’t reached a Triple Crown final in their careers so far, so we’ll still have some time to wait and see if we can stop mentioning the so-called Crucible Curse.
Like this Short? Click here to read: The Trials of a World Snooker Champion
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