The ice is melting

   In the last post there is a record of the Highest break of The  King of the Crucible that he made  in 2009, when he was 40 years old. But in the following years, the quality of his game did not fall, as evidenced by the Highest  breaks he  made in 2011 and 2012. However, 2012 was the last in the Main Tour of The Ice Man. In the 1/16- th World Chempionship,   2012, Hendry defeated Bingham (ranking 17 in the beginning of the season, and 16 at the end) - 10:4 (match when he made his last 11th Highest break). In 1/8, he did not leave a chance for defending  title  World Champion, and countryman Higgins (started the season 2nd, finished 5th) - 13:3. In the quarterfinals, two Stevens, two Scots met: 31-year-old  Maguire  from Glasgow (ranking in the season 8-4) and 43-year-old  Hendry who was born in Edinburgh, who dropped in ranking from 16th to 21st place.
   Let's go back to the background of this historic match. The irony of fate is that with his brilliant games in the 90s, his 7 titles and his prize money, the King of the Crucible attracted tens of thousands of boys to snooker, who could see the smallest nuances of the game on TV, hear intelligent comments and analysis of experts. These boys trained hard, went through the toughest selection sieve, and by the 2000-s were audacious contenders for a place in the sun. I think that if snooker in the 90-s and 2000-s did not become a television sport, Hendry could have remained The King for many years and most likely broke the record of 15-time  (1927-1940, 1946 ) World Champion Joe Davis. TV and the great game of Hendry  as a player contributed to the arrival of a new generation of talented players in snooker. They raised the level of competition so much that The Ice Man in the 2000-s began to thaw, which was reflected in a gradual decline in his rating. But back to the game.
   When a young, cheeky player met with a 7-times World Champion, he had a huge advantage - if he lost, no one would blame him, but The King of Crucible was increasingly irritated by the self-confidence of the talented youngsters and the pressure from previous failures increased. As a result, The Ice Man did not demonstrate his best performance and deepened the psychological hole. In the 1/4 World Championship of 2012, Hendry lost to Maguire 2:13 and immediately announced that he was retiring and that he had made the decision 3 months ago.

Curiously, this was the season when Trump from the 9th place soared to the 2nd, but in the 1/8 of World Championship lost to Carter 12:13. And Carter (in the season dropped from 6 to 17) in the semifinal beat 17:12  Maguire, who made to retire The  King of the Crucible. The World Champion in 2012  (as in 2001, 2004, 2008 and 2013) become O'Sullivan (places in the season 11-9), who beat Carter 18:11 and earned £250,000.

Hendry must have been particularly emotional about losing to Maguire. After all, The King of  the Crucible made his 10th maximum in the 1/8 Welsh Open in 2011. But this achievement was overshadowed by the same Maguire, winning the math 4: 2.

   I think that Stephen still regretted the decision to leave the Tour in 2012. By that time, a remarkable shift had grown up in Scotland: McManus, Dott, Higgins, Maguire, McGill, Donaldson - but even in the pack of these superprofi, Hendry could remain an  ace until today. Hendry's World Snooker profile states that he is "generally considered the greatest snooker player ever", and it is difficult to disagree with this.

The King of the Crucible

Since 1977, the World Snooker Championship has been held in the city of Sheffield (England) in the building of the theater with the telling name Crucible  Theatre . On April 28, 2009, the Crucible crowd cheered their King Stephen Hendry (10) and The Magician  Shaun Murphy(3), who played a quarterfinal match to 13 wins.

During his life as snooker player , Hendry had  several nicknames: The  Golden Boy ( 1985-1990), The King of the Crucible (1991-2006), and The Ice Man ( 2007-2012). In the seventh frame, after 16 hits, The King scored 64 points, playing only  through the black . After the 8th black cue ball rolled an extra 10 cm, and you Stephen had to choose: a safety shot or a crooked triple plant. In this position, great pragmatists like Selby or Robertson would probably have chosen safety shot , because there were still 83 points on the table

But the great Scot, who is 40 years old, chose the attack and carried out this blow as if in training, without long rounds of the table and manipulations with the cue in search of a target point . In this game Hendry made his 9 out of 11 maximum break (15*8+27=147 points) and led the match 5-2. 

He showed again that he was still King of the Crucible. After the frame, Murphy warmly congratulated his  famous opponent.

Stephen nevertheless  lost the entire match with a score of 11: 13. In the semifinals, Murphy beat Roberson 17: 14, but in the final lost to Higgins (The Title holder of  1998, 2007, 2009, 2011 years) 9: 18.

For his fantastic series, Hendry received a modest increase to his upcoming pension - £140,000 (this is how much the maximum cost in 2009!) plus £10,000, - for the best break.

Snooker is a small life

Snooker is like a dangerous virus. Just watch one or two games, and you get it forever. I am sure that in 5-10 years this game will be the highest rated TV game a spectacle, leaving behind tennis, football and baseball. In 1967, snooker took 14 minutes in the grid of the BBC. In 2007 this figure increased to 400 hours, i.e. more than one hour per day!

   The highest level of modern snooker achieved, in many ways, thanks to TV broadcasts when the boys of the 90's you could see the game of a living legend - Stephen Hendry.
   Stephen was born in Edinburgh on 13 January 1969 and first time picked up a cue at the age of 12, when his father ave him a smaller snooker table for Christmas (and his birthday). At age of 16, Hendry turned professional, and in 21 years old, in 1990, won the title of the World Champion. In 1992-1996 and 1999 the undefeated Scot takes another 6 world titles.

   For comparison, in 2019, brilliant English player Judd Trump only at the age of 29 became the Champion of the World first time. Hendry,  when he was 30,  had  won 7 (!) titles of the World Champion. 

   Hendry was not only the best in break-building, he was the inventor of techniques, which became classics after him. Prior to Hendry, players would usually attempt to break the pack of reds by cutting the black in the corner. However there was always a great risk of burying the cue ball and losing an attack.  Hendry invented, now common technique,  of potting the blue with pace and bottom spin on the white ball to cannon into the pink, with the object being to hit the pink ball to open the pack of reds and develop them for break-building. 

   During his professional career (1986-2012)  Stephen earned £8.97 million  in prize money, made 775 centuries, and 11 highest breaks.