World Championship – Day 11 – Hendry sings swansong at Crucible

Stephen Hendry announced, in a press conference that followed his 13-2 defeat in the quarter-finals of the World Championship, he was officially retiring from snooker .

 

Hendry lost to his fellow countryman Stephen Maguire in a match that didn’t even reach its third session.

 

Maguire fired in breaks of 41, 68, 117, 60 and 95 to go 7-1 up at the end of the first session, the second one also meaning the end of the match as the same Scottish player used runs of 67, 72, 68, 125 and 45 to put and end to Hendry’s misery at 13-2.

 

In the press conference that followed the match, Hendry said that he decided to retire from professional snooker “about three months ago”, independently of what was going to happen during the World Championship.

 

The Scotsman stated his recent commitments from China, the fact that he hasn’t been playing well lately and the busy schedule, as reasons to put an end to his career.

 

He also declared that he’s “delighted” to have made a maximum break at the Crucible this year (Hendry made a 147 in the first round by playing against Stuart Bingham) and added that, although he’s sad he won’t be playing at the Crucible again, it was also a “relief”.

 

Stephen Hendry, known as The Crucible King due to the fact that he holds the record for winning seven world-titles there, dominated the 90s with his aggressive cue style, his personal “ice figure” logo and became a snooker icon for many of today’s players.

 

Last year he dropped out of the Top 16 and had to qualify for ranking events for the first time in more than 20 years. Still, he managed to have a pretty good season and qualified for the UK Championship, Welsh Open, Haikou World Open and also China Open before making his final entrance into the Crucible arena as a Main Tour player.

 

He beat Stuart Bingham by 10-4 in the first round and eliminated defending champion John Higgins by 12-4 in the second one, before having his run stopped by Stephen Maguire.

 

In other news today, Neil Robertson took a very important 5-3 lead over Ronnie O’Sullivan, the same happening for Ali Carter in the match he played against Jamie Jones, while Welshman Matthew Stevens flew all the way to 10-6 over countryman Ryan Day after two sessions of cue-crossings.