The 2007 World Snooker Championship (officially the 2007 888.com World Snooker Championship) was a professional snooker tournament. It was held at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, England, the 31st consecutive year that the World Snooker Championship was staged at the venue. It started on 21 April 2007 and was scheduled to finish on 7 May 2007, but continued into the early hours of 8 May. The seventh and final ranking tournament of the 2006–07 snooker season, it was organised by the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association and sponsored for the second time by online casino 888.com. The total prize fund was £941,000, of which the winner received £220,000.
The qualifying rounds took place from 23 February to 2 March 2007 at Pontin's in Prestatyn, Wales, and from 12 to 15 March at the English Institute of Sport in Sheffield. The successful 16 qualifiers met the top 16 players from the snooker world rankings in the tournament's main stage at the Crucible. Graeme Dott was the defending champion, having defeated Peter Ebdon 18–14 in the 2006 final. He lost in the first round to Ian McCulloch and became another world champion who fell to the Crucible curse and could not defend his first world title.
John Higgins won his second world title by defeating qualifier Mark Selby 18–13 in the final. Ending at 12:54 a.m. BST, the final broke the record for the latest finish time in a World Snooker Championship final, narrowly beating the 2006 final by two minutes. A total of 68 century breaks were compiled during the event's main stage, the highest being a 144 made by Ali Carter. It was the joint-highest number with the 2002 event until 2009. Another 61 century breaks were made during the qualifying rounds.
Background
The inaugural 1927 World Snooker Championship, then known as the Professional Championship of Snooker, took place at various venues in England between November 1926 and May 1927. Joe Davis won the final—held at Camkin's Hall in Birmingham from 9 to 12 May 1927—and went on to win the tournament 15 consecutive times before retiring undefeated after the 1946 edition (no tournaments were held from 1941 to 1945 because of World War II). The tournament went into abeyance after only two players contested the 1952 edition, due to a dispute between the Professional Billiards Players' Association (PBPA) and the Billiards Association and Control Council (BACC). The PBPA established an alternative tournament, the World Professional Championship, of which the six editions held between 1952 and 1957 are retroactively regarded as legitimate continuations of the World Snooker Championship. However, due to waning public interest in snooker during the era, that tournament was also discontinued, and the world title was uncontested between 1958 and 1963.
Then-professional player Rex Williams was instrumental in reviving the World Snooker Championship on a challenge basis in 1964. John Pulman, winner of the 1957 World Professional Championship, defended the world title across seven challenge matches between 1964 and 1968. The World Snooker Championship reverted to an annual knockout tournament for the 1969 edition, marking the beginning of the championship's "modern era". The 1977 edition was the first staged at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, where it has remained since. The most successful player in the modern era was Stephen Hendry, having won the title seven times. Hendry was also the tournament's youngest winner, having captured his first title at the 1990 event, aged . Ray Reardon became the oldest winner when he secured his sixth title at the 1978 event, aged .
Graeme Dott was the defending champion, having won his first title at the 2006 championship, defeating Peter Ebdon 1814 in the final. Organised by the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association, the 2007 tournament was sponsored by online casino 888.com.
Format The 2007 World Snooker Championship took place from 21 April to 7 May 2007 in Sheffield, England. The tournament was the last of seven ranking events in the 2006–07 snooker season on the World Snooker Tour. It featured a 32-player main draw that was held at the Crucible Theatre, as well as a qualifying draw that was played at Pontin's, in Prestatyn, Wales from 23 February to 2 March and from 12 to 15 March. This was the 31st consecutive year that the tournament had been staged at the Crucible. The main stages of the event were broadcast by the BBC in the United Kingdom.
The top 16 players in the latest world rankings automatically qualified for the main draw as seeded players. Dott was seeded first overall as the defending champion, and the remaining 15 seeds were allocated based on the latest world rankings. The number of required to win a match increased throughout the tournament. The first round consisted of best-of-19-frames matches, with the final match being played over a maximum of 35 frames. All 16 non-seeded spots in the main draw were filled with players from the qualifying rounds. The draw for the televised stage of the World Championship was made on 19 March 2007 and announced on the following day.
Prize fund The breakdown of prize money for this year is shown below:
Winner: £220,000 Runner-up: £110,000 Semi-final: £42,000 Quarter-final: £22,000 Last 16: £14,000 Last 32: £10,600 Last 48: £7,400 Last 64: £4,500
Stage one highest break: £1,000 Stage two highest break: £10,000 Stage one maximum break: £5,000 Stage two maximum break: £147,000 Total: £941,000
Summary Qualifying Two preliminary qualifying rounds and four qualifying rounds for the tournament took place at Pontin's Prestatyn, Wales between 22 February and 2 March. The final qualifying round took place at the English Institute of Sport in Sheffield between the 12 and 15 March 2007.
Members of the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA) that were not part of the 96-player main tour were permitted to compete in pre-qualifying. Three-time semi-finalist Tony Knowles lost 4–5 to Del Smith. Smith's highest in the match was 35, while Knowles had a best break of 34. Knowles was eligible as a former WPBSA board member, and Smith, who defeated Barry Stark 5–4 in the second round, retained his WPBSA membership to continue as a WPBSA coach. James Leadbetter made breaks of 138 and 126 in defeating Les Dodd 10-8.
The youngest player in the tournament, Judd Trump, 17, compiled breaks of 142 and 116 when he beat Bradley Jones 10–8 in the second round. Robin Hull withdrew from his third round match against Mark Joyce after being diagnosed with an irregular heartbeat.
The six-time runner-up Jimmy White failed to qualify for the main event for only the second time in 27 years when he lost 4–10 to Jamie Burnett. Mark Allen recorded three century breaks in his 10–4 win against Robert Milkins. 1991 champion John Parrott recovered from 3–6 against David Gray to win 10–4. Ding Junhui became the first Chinese player to qualify for the main tournament, defeating Mark Davis 10–6. Trump was the third-ever 17-year-old to qualify, overcoming James Wattana 10–5 after leading 9–1.
First round
The first round was played between 21 and 26 April as the best of 19 held over two . The defending champion, Graeme Dott, lost 710 to Ian McCulloch. This made Dott the 14th first-time champion who failed to defend his title since the tournament moved to the Crucible Theatre in 1977, succumbing to what has been called the 'Crucible curse'. "The way Ian [McCulloch] plays frustrated the life out of me," Dott said. In his match against Steve Davis, John Parrott compiled a century break of 126 and manufactured a 61 lead, but Davis stopped the rot with a break of 100 and produced further breaks of 69 and 70 to tie the match at 66. Parrott then compiled an 80 and a 64, and, although Davis forced a with a break of 96, Parrott prevailed.
Peter Ebdon, the winner of the 2006 UK Championship during the season, was faced with the 1995 runner-up, Nigel Bond. Ebdon manufactured a 40 lead, but Bond stopped the rot taking the following frame on the and then produced breaks of 40, 68, 46 and 114 to go 54 in front for the first time. Ebdon turned the scores around once again with back-to-back breaks of 60, but Bond compiled yet another 60 to tie the scores 66. Bond made a century break as Ebdon won four out of the five last frames of the match for a 107 victory. John Higgins, champion of the tournament in the 1998 edition, had not made it further than the semi-finals of the 2006 UK Championship during the season. He won 104 over Michael Holt, whose "inability to deal with frustration" was heavily criticised by snooker commentator Clive Everton, writing for The Guardian. "I've tried to work on the mental side of my game for seven years but nothing seems to change. I can't accept it when things go wrong. I sit there and feel so annoyed," said Holt. Andy Hicks, a semi-finalist in 1995, was beaten by the 15th seed Ali Carter, who compiled century breaks of 112 and 129 en route to a 104 win.
Two qualifiers, Fergal O'Brien and Joe Swail, also won their first-round matches in a deciding frame. In a match that featured two century breaks, O'Brien was 64, 85 and 96 ahead of Barry Hawkins, but Hawkins made breaks of 129, 78 and 66 to tie the match 99. O'Brien won the 19th frame 7125 to win the match. "It's horrible having come back from 96 down to level at 99 and then get beaten," Hawkins said. Swail fell 04 behind the two-time world champion Mark Williams, but replied with breaks of 66, 63, 53, 62, 71 and 72 to equalise. Swail also made a century break of 114 in the match, and breaks of both 65 and 56 in the decider, winning 109. Also a qualifier, Mark Selby saw Stephen Lee compile breaks of 126, 64, 67 and 71 as he went 05 behind. However, Selby won eight frames in a row, later winning 107. "At 50 up I should have put my foot onto his throat. He didn't play well and won, that's the biggest frustration. I thought he was going to bottle it because he's not a big-time player," claimed Lee in the post-match interview.
There were five debutants in this year's tournament: Mark Allen, Judd Trump, Ding Junhui, David Gilbert and Joe Delaney. Allen, who faced the 1997 champion and third seed Ken Doherty, was the only one of the five who won his first-round match. Aided by of 92 and 95 in the first two frames, Allen led 40. Doherty made a 135 century break to level the scores at 7 each, but Allen clinched a 107 victory with three consecutive breaks. Trump became only the third 17-year-old, after Hendry and Ronnie O'Sullivan, to qualify for the Crucible, where he set up a first-round encounter with Shaun Murphy, the 2005 champion. Although Murphy won the first three frames with breaks of 81, 96 and 52, Trump compiled breaks of 93, 57 and 85 to go ahead at 65. However, Murphy won five frames in a row to advance into the second round. "The amount of talent he showed me at times baffled me. He was like Jimmy White when he first came here," Murphy said of Trump. Gilbert, ranked 67th in the world, also took five consecutive frames, featuring one century break, to lead seven-time champion Stephen Hendry 51, but he eventually lost 710. "I kept missing, missing and missing. I suppose I twitched up completely. I didn't feel nervous but I suppose the Crucible jitters got me at the end," said Gilbert afterwards. Delaney won two deciders against Barry Pinches and Alan McManus to reach the Crucible, but, having trailed 05, he was beaten 210 by Matthew Stevens.