Showing posts with label celebrities. Show all posts
Showing posts with label celebrities. Show all posts

Sunday, March 22, 2020

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.