Dennis Taylor / Achievements

Dennis Taylor in 2004

This list shows the sporting achievements of the snooker player Dennis Taylor . The Northern Irish Taylor was a professional player between 1972 and 2000 and won 23 tournaments during this time and was in the final or second place with 24 others. His most important successes include winning the World Snooker Championship in 1985 with an 18:17 victory over Steve Davis known as the black ball final, as well as winning the Masters in 1987 . However, he was unable to win the UK Championship , the third Triple Crown tournament .

After some amateur successes and a move from Northern Ireland to Blackburn , England , Taylor became a professional player in 1972 and reached his first finals in 1974 at the Canadian Open and in 1975 at Pot Black . In the years that followed, Taylor gradually rose to become one of the world's top players, so that when the world rankings were introduced in 1976, he was already in the top ten places. His first career climax followed in 1979 when he reached the final of the World Snooker Championship and was defeated in this by the debutant Terry Griffiths .

But despite his success, it was not until 1980 that Taylor won his first tournament at the Irish Professional Championship against Alex Higgins . Despite further final victories and participations in the following years, Taylor slipped out of the top ten places in the world rankings for lack of further success in ranked tournaments. But after his mother's death in 1984, Taylor managed to win his first of these tournaments at the Grand Prix before reaching the final of the World Snooker Championship at the end of that season . In this he was already 8-0 down against Steve Davis at times, but Taylor made the comeback and also made it into the decider , the decisive, last frame. In this, the decision culminated in the very last black, which Taylor sank after several safetys and thus won the final, later known as the black ball final .

In the following years Taylor achieved numerous victories in invitation tournaments and two other finals at the Grand Prix, but after a victory at the Masters in 1987 and several titles at the World Cup , Taylor slowly said goodbye to the world elite. After he had reached another ranking tournament final at the Asian Open in 1990 , he last took part in a professional final in 1995 as part of the Charity Challenge . Five years later, at the end of the 1999/2000 season , the Northern Irishman ended his professional career, after which he appeared as a snooker commentator for the BBC .

Ranking positions and triple crown successes

The following table shows Taylor's world rankings and his results in the linked editions of the Triple Crown tournaments .

Legend
S.	winner	F.	finalist
HF	Semi-finalist	VF	Quarter finalist
AF	Round of 16	#R	Eliminated in an earlier round
QR	not qualified	A.	did not participate in the tournament
oR	without ranking	S / N	Victories / defeats

competition	1972/ 1973	1973/ 1974	1974/ 1975	1975/ 1976	1976/ 1977	1977/ 1978	1978/ 1979	1979/ 1980	1980/ 1981	1981/ 1982	1982/ 1983	1983/ 1984	1984/ 1985	1985/ 1986	1986/ 1987	1987/ 1988	1988/ 1989	1989/ 1990	1990/ 1991	1991/ 1992	1992/ 1993	1993/ 1994	1994/ 1995	1995/ 1996	1996/ 1997	1997/ 1998	1998/ 1999	1999/ 2000	Career S / N
World snooker ranking	no ranking			9	9	4th	8th	2	6th	5	13	13	11	4th	3	8th	10	8th	10	9	11	15th	24	32	26th	34	52	88
UK Championship	no event					AF	AF	HF	VF	AF	AF	AF	AF	HF	AF	2R	AF	AF	1R	2R	2R	2R	2R	AF	2R	2R	QR	QR	UK Championship: 0/23
Masters	k. A.		A.	1R	1R	VF	A.	VF	1R	1R	A.	AF	AF	VF	S.	AF	AF	AF	AF	AF	AF	VF	A.	A.	A.	A.	A.	A.	Masters: 1/26
World Snooker Championship	1R	1R	HF	VF	HF	AF	F.	AF	VF	1R	AF	HF	S.	1R	AF	AF	AF	1R	VF	1R	VF	1R	QR	QR	QR	QR	QR	QR	WM: 1/28

Overview of the finals

Throughout his career, Taylor reached 47 entries in finals or final positions in second place. In 23 cases he was able to win the final, but in 24 other cases he lost or was only second in the group.

Ranked tournaments

Overall, Taylor took part in six finals of ranked tournaments, of which he could only win two. There was one victory and one defeat in each Triple Crown tournament.

Color meanings : Tournament of the Triple Crown

Result	year	competition	Opponent in the final	Final score
finalist	1979	World Snooker Championship	Terry Griffiths	16:24
winner	1984	Grand Prix	Cliff Thorburn	10: 2
winner	1985	World Snooker Championship	Steve Davis	18:17
finalist	1985	Grand Prix	Steve Davis	9:10
finalist	1987	Grand Prix	Stephen Hendry	7:10
finalist	1990	Asian Open	Stephen Hendry	3: 9

Invitation tournaments

In invitation tournaments, i.e. tournaments whose participants were invited by the organizer to participate and which were therefore not accessible to all players, Taylor reached the final a total of twenty times, winning exactly half of these games. One of the victories also took place at the Triple Crown Masters tournament.

Color meanings : Tournament of the Triple Crown

Result	year	competition	Opponent in the final	Final score
finalist	1975	Pot Black	Graham Miles	27:81 1
finalist	1976	Pot Black	John Spencer	42:69 1
finalist	1980	Tolly Cobbold Classic	Alex Higgins	4: 5
finalist	1980	Classic	Steve Davis	1: 4
finalist	1982	Tolly Cobbold Classic	Steve Davis	3: 8
winner	1984	Costa Del Sol Classic	Mike Hallett	5: 2
winner	1985	Canadian Masters	Steve Davis	9: 5
winner	1985	KitKat Break for World Champions	Steve Davis	9: 5
winner	1986	Australian Masters	Steve Davis	3: 2
finalist	1986	Malaysian Masters	Jimmy White	1: 2
finalist	1986	Hong Kong Masters	Willie Thorne	3: 8
winner	1986	Carlsberg Challenge	Jimmy White	8: 3
winner	1987	Masters	Alex Higgins	8: 9
winner	1987	Tokyo Masters	Terry Griffiths	6: 3
winner	1987	Carling Championship	Joe Johnson	8: 5
winner	1987	Matchroom Professional Championship	Willie Thorne	10: 3
winner	1987	Canadian Masters	Jimmy White	9: 7
finalist	1988	Matchroom Professional Championship	Steve Davis	7:10
finalist	1990	Irish Masters	Dennis Taylor	9: 4
finalist	1995	Charity Challenge	Stephen Hendry	1: 9

¹ Final score on points

Non-ranking tournaments

In so-called non-ranking tournaments - i.e. tournaments whose results, like those of the invitation tournaments, did not flow into the world rankings and also partly had an invited field - Taylor reached the finals thirteen times, with seven wins just over half of the games could decide for himself.

Result	year	competition	Opponent in the final	Final score
finalist	1974	Canadian Open	Cliff Thorburn	6: 8
finalist	1978	Irish Professional Championship	Alex Higgins	7:21
winner	1980	Irish Professional Championship	Alex Higgins	21:15
finalist	1980	Pontins Camber Sands	Alex Higgins	7: 9
winner	1981	Irish Professional Championship	Patsy Fagan	22:21
finalist	1981	International Open	Steve Davis	0: 9
winner	1982	Irish Professional Championship	Alex Higgins	16:13
finalist	1983	Irish Professional Championship	Alex Higgins	11:16
winner	1985	Irish Professional Championship	Alex Higgins	10: 5
winner	1985	Thailand Masters	Terry Griffiths	4-0
winner	1986	Irish Professional Championship	Alex Higgins	10: 7
winner	1987	Irish Professional Championship	Joe O'Boye	9: 2
finalist	1988	Irish Professional Championship	Jack McLaughlin	4: 9

Ligature

In league tournaments, that is, tournaments that in this case were only played in a round robin mode , Taylor took second place twice.

Result	year	competition	First place	The end of the game between the two players
finalist	1979	Bombay International	John Spencer	6: 5
finalist	1984	Professional Snooker League	John Virgo	4: 6

Team competitions

In team competitions Taylor reached a total of five finals, of which he was able to win three with his teammates.

Result	year	competition	Team partner	Opponent in the final	Final score
winner	1985	World cup	Alex Higgins Eugene Hughes	Steve Davis Tony Knowles Tony Meo	9: 7
winner	1986	World cup	Alex Higgins Eugene Hughes	Cliff Thorburn Kirk Stevens Bill Werbeniuk	9: 7
winner	1987	World cup	Alex Higgins Eugene Hughes	Cliff Thorburn Kirk Stevens Bill Werbeniuk	9: 2
Second	1987	World Doubles Championship	Cliff Thorburn	Mike Hallett Stephen Hendry	8:12
Second	1990	World cup	Alex Higgins Tommy Murphy	Cliff Thorburn Alain Robidoux Bob Chaperon	5: 9

Amateur tournaments

Taylor reached the final of an amateur tournament only once during his entire career, which he was able to win.

Result	year	competition	Opponent in the final	Final score
finalist	1980	Pontins Camber Sands Open	Geoff Foulds	7: 5

Individual evidence

1. ^ Ron Florax: Ranking History For Dennis Taylor. CueTracker.net, accessed October 21, 2019 .  
2. ↑ Chris Turner: Historical World Rankings. Chris Turner's Snooker Archive, 2011, archived from the original on June 8, 2012 ; accessed on October 21, 2019 (English).  
3. ↑ Ron Florax: Winner Finishes By Dennis Taylor In All Professional 1 Events. CueTracker.net, accessed October 24, 2019 .  
4. ↑ Ron Florax: Final Finishes By Dennis Taylor In All Professional 1 Events. CueTracker.net, accessed October 24, 2019 .  
5. ↑ Ron Florax: Winner Finishes By Dennis Taylor In All Professional 5 Events. CueTracker.net, accessed October 24, 2019 .  
6. ↑ Ron Florax: Final Finishes By Dennis Taylor In All Professional 5 Events. CueTracker.net, accessed October 24, 2019 .  
7. ↑ Ron Florax: Winner Finishes By Dennis Taylor In All Professional 3 Events. CueTracker.net, accessed October 24, 2019 .  
8. ↑ Ron Florax: Final Finishes By Dennis Taylor In All Professional 3 Events. CueTracker.net, accessed October 24, 2019 .  
9. ^ Ron Florax: 1979 Bombay International. CueTracker.net, accessed October 24, 2019 .  
10. ^ Ron Florax: 1984 Professional Snooker League. CueTracker.net, accessed October 24, 2019 .  
11. ↑ Chris Turner: World Cup / World Team Classic / Nations Cup - Team Events. Chris Turner's Snooker Archive, 2011, archived from the original on January 7, 2012 ; accessed on October 24, 2019 (English).  
12. ↑ Chris Turner: World Doubles Championship - Non Ranking Event. Chris Turner's Snooker Archive, 2008, archived from the original on January 7, 2012 ; accessed on October 24, 2019 (English).  
13. ↑ Ron Florax: Winner Finishes By Dennis Taylor In All Non-professional 13 Events. CueTracker.net, accessed October 24, 2019 .  

This version was included in the selection of informative lists and portals on November 15, 2019 .