Mark King (snooker player)

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Mark King
Mark King
birthday 28th March 1974 (age 46)
place of birth Romford
nationality EnglandEngland England
Nickname (s) The Romford Battler,
The Royal King
professional since 1991
Prize money £ 1,696,080 (As of August 27, 2020)
Highest break 146
Century Breaks 151 (as of August 27, 2020)
Main tour successes
World championships -
Ranking tournament victories 1
Minor tournament victories -
World rankings
Highest WRL place 11 ( 02/03 )
Current WRL location 36 (as of August 17, 2020)

Mark King (born March 28, 1974 in Romford , Essex ) is a British snooker player .

Career

The beginnings

Mark King took part in the professional snooker tour from 1991. In the first year he made it into the last 128 at the Dubai Classic. In the following year he did so in the two most important world ranking tournaments, the UK Championship and the World Championship . In the 1993/94 season he defeated at the International Open, among others, John Higgins and Ronnie O'Sullivan and regularly reached placements up to the last 64. He celebrated his greatest success at the World Cup , where he came under the last 32 and his first Appeared in the final round at the Crucible Theater . At the end of the season he was already in the top 100 of the snooker world rankings .

Promotion to the top 16

In the following season he reached the round of 32 three times and at the UK Championship in 1994 he was in the round of 16 of a world ranking tournament for the first time, having previously beaten Alan McManus and Anthony Hamilton . At the World Cup , however, it was over after just three rounds. In the 1995/96 season he was able to confirm the performance. At the German Open , which was held for the first time , he was able to add a second round of 16 result after beating Ronnie O'Sullivan a second time. At the end of the season he missed his second Crucible appearance for a win, but was then able to improve to 39th place in the two-year ranking of the world rankings.

In the fall of 1996, he came to the quarterfinals for the first time at the Benson & Hedges Championship , even if it was only an invitation tournament. A first career highlight was the Welsh Open the following year , where he reached a ranking final for the first time in his career. He had beaten Steve Davis and Mark Williams , among others , and in the end only had to acknowledge the superiority of world champion Stephen Hendry , who won the final 9-2. Although it remained the only outstanding result, it made it into the top 32 in the world. The following year there was a quarter-final at the UK Championship and again a semi-final at the Welsh Open and two more round of 16. At the World Cup he reached the final round for the second time and won his first match at the Crucible against Nigel Bond . This meant a big step forward, because he reached 16th place in the rankings and, among other things, saved himself the qualifying rounds for the World Cup. He did not start the 1998/99 season so successfully, but after making it into the quarter-finals for the first time at the Masters , he was able to reach four rounds of 16 in ranking tournaments and at the World Cup and once again improve by two places in the world rankings.

The 2000s

The following year, however, the outstanding results were missing. Although he reached the quarter-finals at the Thailand Masters and was under the last 16 several times, because he lost his opening match at the World Cup , he could not compensate for the point that fell out of the two-year standings and fell back out of the top 16. Even if it came back the following year Was the best result in the quarter-finals at the British Open , King was able to regain his top 16 position in 2001 with a consistently good performance. His third round of 16 at the 2001 World Snooker Championship also contributed to this . In the 2001/02 season he was able to improve again and reach the semi-finals at the British Open , five times he was under the last 16. At the end of the season he had achieved his best world rankings with 11th place.

The following season did not go well, however, six times in a row he lost the opening game in tournaments and when he had his first respectable success at the European Open by reaching the quarter-finals, the season was almost over, because at the same time snooker had one too The time of crisis and the number of tournaments decreased significantly. He only managed to win one more match and fell back to 22nd place. The frustrating experience even made him think about quitting, but he continued his career.

The 2003/04 season brought a second career highlight for Mark King: At the Irish Masters he reached a world ranking final for the second time with his only victory over Stephen Hendry and victories over Jimmy White , Graeme Dott and Ken Doherty . Only against Peter Ebdon he lost in the final 7:10. A year later he reached the semi-finals twice: at the UK Championship 2004 and at the Welsh Open. The other results were too few, so that he got stuck at 20th place in the world rankings.

Pot whack

There was a fight between snooker players away from the snooker table on June 11, 2004. Quinten Hann had challenged Andy Hicks to a boxing match after an argument at a match. Mark King, who had not been on good terms with Hann since a £ 500 bet in his youth, accepted the challenge in the place of his friend Hicks. They agreed a charity match and prepared seriously and intensively at boxing clubs. From the six-minute fight according to the official amateur boxing rules in a boxing arena in Bethnal Green , Hann emerged as the winner.

Apart from the Snooker Main Tour , he took part in the German Open in Fürth in 2005 . It was actually an amateur tournament that also included some professional players. King won the tournament with a 4-2 win over Michael Holt . The tournament was the forerunner of the Paul Hunter Classic , which was added to the professional circuit in 2010.

After two years of weaker results, King threatened to drop out of the top 32 in the mid-2000s. The 2006 Grand Prix, with its entry into the semi-finals after victories over Stephen Lee and John Higgins , brought the turning point. At the 2007 Malta Cup he reached the quarter-finals and after consistently good results in the 2007/08 season and another round of 16 at the World Cup - after beating last year's finalist Mark Selby - he returned to the top 16 in the world in 2008.

Even without any particular success, King was able to hold his position in the following two years. The best result was the quarter-finals at the China Open 2010 . At the 2009 World Cup , he reached the round of 16 for the sixth time and was eliminated there for the sixth time. The match against Stephen Maguire went into the statistics because the second frame lasted 75 minutes, the longest game at a World Cup to date.

The 2010s

The 2010/11 season brought big changes in snooker after the association was reorganized. The number of tournaments increased again significantly and the Players Tour Championship with a dozen small tournaments was added. With the short best-of-7 games, King initially did not cope and only at the Shanghai Masters 2010 he did better again and reached the quarter-finals. However, the first round defeats increased, even in the full-fledged tournaments. Only at the Masters and the Snooker Shoot-Out did he reach the quarter-finals again. But since both were invitation tournaments, it fell back in the world rankings to 26th place. The semi-finals at the Shanghai Masters 2011 and the quarter-finals at the World Open 2012 as well as two PTC round of 16 prevented him from falling out of the top 32 the following year.

After a weak start with many defeats at the beginning of the 2012/13 season , King had his first sense of achievement at the Paul Hunter Classic by reaching the last sixteen. At several major tournaments such as the UK Championship 2012 he was also among the last 16. At the World Cup he also reached the second round after victories over Yu Delu and Mark Allen . This enabled him to stop the trend and consolidate his top 32 position. The following year he was able to confirm the performance with consistently good results, once he reached a quarter-finals: at the China Open 2014 .

In 2014/15 , however, there were no results at the major tournaments. He had regular successes at the PTC tournaments, but after the world rankings had been converted to prize money, the low endowment tournaments had little impact and the round of 16 at the German Masters 2015 didn't change much. But because of the PTC successes he had qualified for the Grand Finals for the first time , and that he was among the last 16 was his only major success. Since the seed lists were also constantly updated, he was no longer in the top 32 during the season and therefore had to play three qualifying rounds at the 2015 World Snooker Championship for the first time in a long time . After he did not make it into the Crucible, he was also eliminated from the Top 32 after 18 years of membership.

The following season he reached the semifinals at the Paul Hunter Classic for the first time, which was also his greatest success at a PTC tournament. Further good results on the Players Tour followed, so that he reached the Grand Finals for the second time and made it into the last 16 again. At the German Masters 2016 he repeated the last sixteen placement from the previous year. At the China Open he was finally able to do something for the rating by reaching the quarterfinals after victories over Ali Carter and Shaun Murphy and in his 25th year as a professional he was 36th in the world rankings. After the Players Tour Championship was canceled, King found the 2016/17 season a little difficult and failed in almost all tournaments in the second qualifying round. He got the big surprise at the Northern Ireland Open of the new Home Nations series . Here, too, there were only best-of-7 matches in the first four rounds. After beating the favored Chinese Liang Wenbo in the second game , he marched through to the final. His third Main Tour final turned into a dramatic match. Standing one frame before the victory, he brought his opponent Barry Hawkins with only pink and black on the table to a foul that was hardly to be expected and still lost the frame. In the decision-making frame, however, he kept his nerve and was able to secure the first tournament victory of his professional career. Then he reached the second round in Berlin at the German Masters for the third time in a row . In the world rankings he climbed back to 20th place.

Personal

Mark King is married with three children. After winning the Northern Ireland Open, he confessed to having compulsive gambling. Despite having won over £ 1.3 million in prize money over the course of his long career, he is broke and had to borrow money from his father before the tournament.

successes

Tournament victory

Final participation

swell

  1. ↑ Mark King's profile on CueTracker (as of August 18, 2018)
  2. ↑ It's 'pot-whack' for boxing snooker stars , Mail Online, May 12, 2004
  3. ↑ Hann triumphs in Pot Whack , BBC Sport, June 12, 2004
  4. ↑ Final drama between Mark King and Barry Hawkins in the 16th frame: Who is punching Pink? (Video), Eurosport, November 21, 2016
  5. ↑ Northern Ireland champ Mark King reveals gambling woes: 'I came here without a tenner in the bank' , RTÉ, November 21, 2016

Web links

Commons : Mark King  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME King, Mark
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English snooker player
DATE OF BIRTH March 28, 1974
PLACE OF BIRTH Romford , Essex