Ken Doherty

The title of this article is ambiguous. For the track and field athlete, see Ken Doherty (track and field athlete) .

Ken Doherty
birthday	17th September 1969 (age 50)
place of birth	Ranelagh , Dublin
nationality	Ireland
Nickname (s)	The Darling of Dublin
professional	since 1990
Prize money	£ 3,706,931 (as of August 27, 2020)
Highest break	147 ( Paul Hunter Classic 2012 )
Century Breaks	346 (as of August 27, 2020)
Main tour successes
World championships	1
Ranking tournament victories	6th
Minor tournament victories	-
World rankings
Highest WRL place	2 ( 06/07 )
Current WRL location	68 (as of August 17, 2020)

Ken Doherty (born September 17, 1969 in Ranelagh , Dublin ) is an Irish snooker player and commentator.

Career

Ken Doherty won the Irish Amateur Championship in 1987 , and in 1989 he won the IBSF World Amateur Championship as well as the IBSF U21 World Championship . The following year he became a professional player.

In his professional career, Doherty has won six world rankings so far. In 1997 he became world snooker champion with a final victory over Stephen Hendry . Two more times he was in the World Cup final: in 1998 he lost to John Higgins , in 2003 to Mark Williams .

At the Benson & Hedges Masters 2000 he had the greatest chance of a maximum break in the final against Matthew Stevens . After 15 sunk red balls and a subsequent black ball, he only missed the last ball in the endgame on the colors, which he shot from the spot from a supposedly simple position.

Doherty celebrated his most recent win at a world ranking tournament in 2006 at the Malta Cup by beating John Higgins in the final. He managed to catch up after a 5: 8 deficit before he also won the decisive frame to 9: 8.

After his successful year 2006 Doherty was led for the season 2006/07 in the snooker world rankings behind Stephen Hendry on rank 2, the highest position of his career. But he could not build on the performance of 2006 in the following seasons. He fell out of the top 16 after a weak 2007/08 season , so he had to compete in ranked tournaments in qualification.

Ken Doherty is the only snooker player besides Stuart Bingham to become both amateur and professional world champion. Besides Peter Ebdon, he is the only player who could beat Stephen Hendry in a World Cup final.

On October 26, 2008 Doherty lost the final of the World Series of Snooker in Warsaw 4-6 against Ding Junhui .

In his first round match at the Paul Hunter Classic 2012 , he managed the first official maximum break of his career.

His loss to Ben Woollaston in Round 2 of qualifying for the 2017 World Cup resulted in the loss of his eligibility to play on the Main Tour. Due to the World Cup anniversaries taking place this year, 90 years since the first edition in 1927 and 40 years of the Crucible Theater, Barry Hearn , Chairman of the World Snooker Association ( WPBSA) , awarded him and Jimmy White for the first time "invitation cards" for two more seasons until 2019.

Others

• In 2002, Doherty almost went blind in a bathroom accident.
• His eye-catching scar on his face comes from a fall on his seventh birthday when he fell from a hall roof onto a metal trash can.
• During Doherty's game in the 1997 World Cup final, the police in Dublin did not receive a single emergency call for three hours.
• Since December 2001 Ken Doherty has been married to the Australian psychologist Sarah, with whom he has a son.
• In the snooker scene he is also known under the name “The Darling of Dublin”, but his second nickname “Crafty Ken” is rarely used.
• He was the first Irishman to be inducted into the Snooker Hall of Fame in 2013 .

successes

→ Main article : Ken Doherty / Achievements

During his career, Doherty reached a total of 59 finals, both as a professional player and as an amateur, of which he was able to win 31. While a full listing of these finals is on this page , the following are Doherty's triple crown finals appearances .

Result	year	competition	Opponent in the final	Final score
finalist	1994	UK Championship	Stephen Hendry	05:10
winner	1997	World Snooker Championship	Stephen Hendry	18:12
finalist	1998	World Snooker Championship	John Higgins	12:18
finalist	2001	UK Championship	Ronnie O'Sullivan	01:10
finalist	2003	UK Championship	Mark Williams	09:10
finalist	2003	World Snooker Championship	Mark Williams	16:18
finalist	1999	Masters	John Higgins	08:10
finalist	2000	Masters	Matthew Stevens	08:10

Web links

Commons : Ken Doherty  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

• Player profile on World Snooker (English)
• Player profile on Pro Snooker Blog (English)
• Profile of Ken Doherty on CueTracker
• Ken Doherty in the snooker Database (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Profile of Ken Doherty at CueTracker (as of August 9, 2018)
2. ↑ The Missed Maximum Break on YouTube
3. ↑ Jimmy White and Ken Doherty given tour cards by World Snooker. (No longer available online.) BBC-online April 14, 2017, archived from the original April 15, 2017 ; accessed on April 15, 2017 (English).  
4. ↑ About Ken on Ken Doherty's homepage.Retrieved May 5, 2019