Steve Davis

Steve Davis, (born 22 August 1957) is an English retired professional snooker player from Plumstead, London. He dominated the sport during the 1980s, when he reached eight World Championship finals in nine years, won six world titles, and held the world number one ranking for seven consecutive seasons. He is also remembered among the wider public for the 1985 World Championship final against Dennis Taylor, which was decided on the final black and still holds the record for the UK's largest post-midnight television audience, with 18.5 million viewers. Davis won a total of 28 ranking events, placing him fourth on the all-time list. In addition to his six world titles, he won the Masters three times and the UK Championship six times, for a total of 15 Triple Crown titles, behind only Ronnie O'Sullivan (19) and Stephen Hendry (18). During the 1987–88 season, he became the first player to win all three Triple Crown events in a single season, and remains one of only three players (along with Hendry and Mark Williams) to achieve this. The first player to earn over £1 million in the professional game, he earned a total of £5.5 million in career prize money. He compiled a career total of 355 competitive century breaks, including the first officially recognised and first televised maximum break in professional competition, at the Classic in 1982. Named the BBC's Sports Personality of the Year in 1988, he remains the only snooker player ever to win the award. Davis' dominance of snooker ended with the emergence of Hendry in the 1990s, but he continued to compete at a high level over the next two decades. He won the Masters in 1997, reached the final of the UK Championship in 2005, and was still a top-16 player when he turned 50 during the 2007/2008 season. In 2010, aged 52, he made a record 30th (and final) appearance at the World Championship, and defeated reigning world champion John Higgins to become the oldest world quarter-finalist since 1983. On 17 April 2016, aged 58, Davis announced his retirement after 38 professional seasons. He remains active as a television analyst and commentator for the BBC's snooker coverage. He was made an MBE in the 1988 Birthday Honours and an OBE in the 2000 New Year Honours.