The 2004 World Snooker Championship (officially the 2004 Embassy World Snooker Championship) was a professional snooker tournament that took place from 17 April to 3 May 2004 at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, England. It was the 28th consecutive year the World Snooker Championship was held at the Crucible. The eighth and final ranking event of the 2003–04 snooker season, the tournament was organised by the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association and sponsored by cigarette brand Embassy. The total prize fund was £1,378,920, of which the winner received £250,000.
Qualifying rounds for the tournament took place from 10 to 20 February 2004 at Pontins in Prestatyn, Wales. The 16 players who progressed through these qualifying rounds met the top 16 players from the snooker world rankings. The main stage of the event was contested as a single-elimination tournament. Both Ryan Day and Stephen Maguire made their debuts in the main stage of the World Championship.
Mark Williams was the defending champion, having won the previous year's final 18–16 against Ken Doherty. He lost 11–13 to Joe Perry in the second round. Ronnie O'Sullivan, despite trailing 0–5 to Graeme Dott in the final, won the match 18–8 and claimed his second World Championship. This was the fourth biggest margin in a World final, a score O'Sullivan would recreate again in 2008 and 2020 over Ali Carter and Kyren Wilson, respectively. A total of 55 century breaks were compiled during the event's main stage, the highest being a 145 made by Joe Perry.
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. As of the 2003 edition, 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 .
Overview The 2004 World Snooker Championship was the eighth and last ranking tournament of the 2003–04 snooker season, held after the Players Championship. It was sponsored by cigarette brand . The 2004 edition marked the 28th consecutive year that the tournament was held at the Crucible and the 36th successive year that the World Championship was contested through the modern knockout format. The defending champion was Mark Williams, who had defeated Ken Doherty 18–16 in the final of the 2003 World Championship to win his second world title.
Format The 2004 World Championship took place from 17 April to 3 May. The event featured a 32-player main draw, preceded by a qualifying tournament that was held at Pontins in Prestatyn, Wales, between 10 and 20 February 2004. The qualifiers were played over six rounds, higher-ranked players being seeded and given byes to the later rounds. All of the rounds were played as the best of 19 .
The top 16 players in the snooker world rankings automatically qualified for the main draw as seeded players. Defending champion Williams was automatically seeded first overall. The remaining 15 seeds were allocated based on the world rankings. The main stage of the event was contested as a single-elimination tournament. Matches in the first round of the main draw were played as the best of 19 frames, second-round matches and quarter-finals played as the best of 25 frames, and the semi-finals as the best of 33 frames. The final was played over two days as a best-of-35-frames match. Reaching the first round of the tournament's main stage were seventeen players from England, six from Scotland, five from Wales, and one each from Ireland, Thailand, Australia and Northern Ireland.
Prize fund The winner of the event received £250,000 from a total fund of £1,378,920. The breakdown of prize money is shown below:
Winner: £250,000 Runner-up: £125,000 Semi-final: £63,200 Quarter-final: £31,600 Last 16: £17,600 Last 32: £12,000 Last 48: £9,200 Last 64: £5,720
Last 80: £4,560 Last 96: £3,440 Last 128: £1,000 Stage one highest : £2,000 Stage two highest break: £17,600 Stage one maximum break: £5,000 Stage two maximum break: £147,000 Total: £1,378,920
Summary Qualifying The qualifying competition was held in three stages at Pontin's, Prestatyn Sands. The first stage, for amateurs and non-Tour professionals, was played at Pontin's, Prestatyn Sands, on 11 January 2004. In stage two, from 12 to 17 January, Challenge Tour Professionals joined the draw. Stage three was played between 10 and 20 February. Former Russian pyramid champion Ashot Potikyan lost 2–5 to Adam Osborne in the first round. Mike Hallett came from 1–4 down against Craig Roper in the third round of the first stage and from 0–4 behind against Pete Roscoe in the fifth round, winning both matches 5–4. Hallett, a quarter-finalist in 1987 and 1989, won five matches in total before losing to Lee Walker. Walker then recorded wins against Gary Thomson, Alfie Burden, Barry Hawkins and Mark Selby to qualify. Three-time semi-finalist Tony Knowles beat Lee Richardson 5–1 in round three but lost 3–5 to David Hall in round four.
Steve James, a semi-finalist in 1991, won four matches to progress to the final stage from phase one. James then led Adrian Rosa 5–3, but Rosa won seven of the next eight to claim victory. Ryan Day compiled of 145 and 140 against Rosa and Tony Jones, respectively. The 145 was the highest in qualifying and earned him £2,000. Mark Allen, a Northern Ireland amateur champion, was defeated 3–5 by Justin Astley in the third round. Astley then lost to Ian Preece 8–10. Trailing 0–9, Joe Johnson conceded to Preece. Preece then lost to David Finbow, who in turn was defeated by Brian Morgan. Joe Swail eliminated Morgan in the final round to qualify. Ding Junhui, aged 17, constructed two century breaks in each of his first three matches. Ding was eliminated by Barry Pinches, who also defeated Tony Drago to qualify.
John Parrott qualified for the Crucible, where he had appeared every year since the 1983 World Championship. Playing Stephen Maguire in the last round, Robin Hull withdrew after a vestibular disorder made him dizzy when playing, and so Maguire qualified. James Wattana, a semi-finalist both in 1993 and 1997, won 10–1 over fellow former semi-finalist Darren Morgan. Wattana then defeated Dave Harold with a 10–8 result to book a place at the Crucible. Trailing Munraj Pal 5–9, Nick Dyson avoided losing winning the fifteenth on the last and then won four more consecutive frames to progress to the last round. He then lost to Ali Carter.
Leo Fernandez won two , but lost 8–10 to Dominic Dale in the final round. Rory McLeod advanced through four rounds before being defeated 1–10 by Robert Milkins in the final qualifying match. Mark King qualified with a 10–8 victory against Adrian Gunnell. Andy Hicks won three qualifying matches, against Simon Bedford, Jamie Burnett and Anthony Davies, to book a place at the Crucible. Anthony Hamilton won his last-round match against Michael Holt in a decider. Ian McCulloch defeated Nigel Bond 10–7 in the final round. Chris Small qualified with a win by the same scoreline against Patrick Wallace. Stuart Pettman recorded victories with a 10–7 result over both Shaun Murphy and Marco Fu.
First round
The first round was played between 17 and 22 April as the best of 19 frames. The defending champion, Mark Williams, played Dale. Williams, who became a father the day before the match was played, earned a 6–3 lead in the first , with five breaks over 50, including a century break of 105 in the second frame. Dale responded and won three frames to draw level at 7–7. Williams, however, clinched victory with the last three frames, which included a . "It's not the best preparation you can have, but if you're happy off the table you can carry that over," Williams commented after the match with regard to his fatherhood.
Six seeded players lost in the first round—Stephen Lee, Quinten Hann, Steve Davis, Peter Ebdon, Ken Doherty and Jimmy White. Although Lee fell 3–6 behind Walker, he managed to win three of the first four frames of the evening session to reduce the gap to a single frame. Walker, nonetheless, clinched the twelfth frame, which lasted 53 minutes, and ended up winning the match 10–7. Lee claimed afterwards that the defeat was the summary of "a terrible season" for him. Hicks advanced into the second round by beating Hann 10–4. Having already been warned for his language by referee Lawrie Annandale in the eleventh frame, he confronted Hicks once the match had ended and he admitted to having told him "You're short, bald and always will be, and can have me outside whenever you want". Hicks pointed out to him that he was likely to drop out of the top 16 as a result of the loss. The six-time champion Davis lost to Hamilton 7–10. Doherty, the 1997 winner, was beaten by two-time semi-finalist Swail 6–10. Doherty's defeat was the first time he had lost in round one since the 1995 event, and had since been champion once, finalist twice and three times a quarter-finalist. Ebdon played McCulloch, who was making his third-ever appearance at the Crucible, having previously qualified for the 1999 and 2003 events. The first session, which featured a 48-minutes-long frame, was shared at 4–4, and the balance was not broken after eight more frames, with a score of 8–8. McCulloch, whose and were praised by his rival, went on to win two frames and sealed the first Crucible victory in his career. Pinches qualified for the main stage for the first time since 1991. He faced White, recent European Open runner-up and Players Championship winner, in a match which overran and had to be completed after other matches. A 10–8 victory meant that Pinches would reach the top 16 in the world rankings for the first time in his career.