The 1993 World Snooker Championship (also referred to as the 1993 Embassy World Snooker Championship for sponsorship reasons) was a professional ranking snooker tournament that took place between 17 April and 3 May 1993 at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, England. Organised by the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association, it was the ninth and final ranking event of the 1992–93 snooker season and the seventeenth consecutive World Snooker Championship to be held at the Crucible, the first tournament at this location having taken place in 1977.
Stephen Hendry was the defending champion, having defeated Jimmy White 18–14 in the 1992 final. The two players reached the final again in 1993, and Hendry won 18–5 with a . Hendry compiled a of 136 at his first visit to the table in the first frame of the final, setting a new record of 204 career century breaks.
Eleven rounds of qualifying for the championship were held from 19 July to 20 September at the Norbreck Hotel, Blackpool. The qualifying competition produced 16 players for the main stage, where they met the 16 invited seeded players. The tournament was broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC2, and was sponsored by the Embassy cigarette brand. Hendry received £175,000 from the total prize fund of £1,000,000. The highest break of the main stage was 144, the fourth-highest in championship history, made by Steve Davis.
Overview The World Snooker Championship is an annual professional snooker tournament organised by the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA). Founded in the late 19th century by British Army soldiers stationed in India, the cue sport was popular in the British Isles. However, in the modern era, which started in 1969 when the World Championship reverted to a knockout format, it has become increasingly popular worldwide, especially in East and Southeast Asian nations such as China, Hong Kong and Thailand.
Joe Davis won the first World Championship in 1927, hosted by the Billiards Association and Control Council, the final match being held at Camkin's Hall in Birmingham, England. The 1993 championship featured 32 professional players competing in one-on-one snooker matches in a single-elimination format, each round being played over a pre-determined number of , and each match divided into two or more s containing a set number of frames. These competitors in the main tournament were selected using a combination of the top players in the snooker world rankings and the winners of a pre-tournament qualification stage. The top 16 players in the world rankings automatically qualified for the event, the remaining 16 players coming through the qualification rounds. It was the seventeenth consecutive World Snooker Championship to be held at the Crucible, the first tournament there having taken place in 1977. The defending champion in 1993 was Stephen Hendry, who had defeated Jimmy White 18–14 in the final of the 1992 World Snooker Championship. The tournament was sponsored by cigarette brand Embassy, and was also referred to as the Embassy World Snooker Championship. The championship was broadcast on BBC2 in the UK. It was the ninth and final ranking event of the 1992–93 snooker season. The event attracted 542 entrants, a record.
Prize fund The tournament had a total prize fund of £1,000,000, broken down as shown below.
Main stage Winner: £175,000 Runner-up: £105,000 Semi-final: £52,000 Quarter-final: £26,000 Last 16: £14,000 Last 32: £8,000 11th qualifying round losers: £5,750 10th qualifying round losers: £3,400 9th qualifying round losers: unknown 8th qualifying round losers: £850 Highest break in qualifying: £4,000 Highest break in main event: £14,400 Maximum break: £100,000
Tournament summary Qualifying There were 11 rounds of matches in the qualifying competition, which was held at the Norbreck Hotel, Blackpool, from 19 July to 20 September 1992. The first seven rounds were the best-of-9-frames, and the later rounds were best-of-19. Sixteen players progressed from qualifying to the main stage where they met the 16 invited seeded players.
The reigning world amateur champion Noppadon Noppachorn beat reigning English Amateur champion Stephen Lee 5–2 in the second round. Noppachorn lost 4–5 to Darren Lennox in round 4. In the sixth round, Pat Kenny made a of 143 during his 5–4 defeat of Norman Maher, which turned out to be the highest break of the qualifying rounds. The women's world champion Allison Fisher defeated Michael Valentine and Robert Champman to reach round six, then lost on the final , 4–5 to Craig MacGillivray. Ronnie O'Sullivan lost only two frames in his first five matches, which included a whitewash of Guy Dennis in round 6. Eight-time champion Fred Davis was also whitewashed, by Mark King, and two-time champion John Spencer withdrew.
Alex Higgins, the champion in 1972 and 1982, started in the seventh round and defeated Steve Judd 5–1, Murdo MacLeod 10–9 and Kirk Stevens 10–5. In the penultimate round of qualifying, Higgins lost 1–10 to Brian Morgan, and said afterwards that there should be drug tests for him and his opponent, Morgan had played so well: "I've never seen anyone play like a machine before. It was surreal snooker." Morgan responded by demanding that he was drug-tested as he had nothing to hide, and a test was carried out. The test result was negative. The 1980 winner Cliff Thorburn lost in his first match, 7–10 to Stephen O'Connor in round nine.
In the last round of qualifying, Les Dodd had a walkover when Eddie Charlton's flight back from a pool tournament in the United States was delayed, meaning that he was in the plane at the time that match started. Joe Johnson, the 1986 World Champion, lost 6–10 to Karl Payne. Joe Swail, the Irish professional champion, won eight consecutive frames from 2–7 down to beat Mike Hallett 10–7.
Eight players qualified for their debut at the main stage of the World Championship. First-season professional Spencer Dunn won 11 matches to reach the main stage, which remained a record as of 2026. Two other players in their first professional season, John Giles and O'Sullivan, each won ten matches to qualify. O'Sullivan was the youngest player ever to qualify for the World Championship main stage. He became the second-youngest player to compete at the main stage, at 17 years and 5 months old, two months older than Stephen Hendry had been at his debut in 1986. The other debutants this year were Morgan, Swail, Payne, Shaun Mellish and O'Connor.
Snooker historian Clive Everton attributed the high number of debutants to the governing body's decision to hold pre-qualifying at the beginning of the season. According to Everton, "This had created the situation whereby relatively inexperienced players could become match hardened in the summer qualifying school and then catch cold many established players just outside the top 16 in the rankings, which would have exempted them from the qualifying competition."
First round
The first round took place between 17 and 22 April, each match played over two as the best of 19 frames. In frame three of his first-round match against Danny Fowler, Hendry compiled the 250th century break at the Crucible, a 124. Three frames later, he made a 128 break, the 200th century break of his career. Fowler won only the tenth frame; Hendry won 10–1. Morgan established a 5–1 lead against Dodd before Dodd took the last three frames of the first session to trail 4–5. In the second session, Morgan lost only the second frame and completed a 10–5 victory. Nigel Bond converted a 6–3 first-session lead into a 10–4 win against Spencer Dunn. The first session of the match between Gary Wilkinson and Dean Reynolds was described by Everton as "perhaps the worst ever seen here in 16 years of championship play." The highest break of the session was only 34, and both players made numerous unforced errors. Wilkinson made two breaks of 58 and a break of 101 in the second session as he ran out a 10–4 winner.
Martin Clark defeated Karl Payne 10–6 and commented afterwards that "He's a bit of a slow player that likes to grind it out and that made it a struggle". Guy Hodgson of The Independent wrote that "it was tortuous progress at times as the play was heavily laced with safety. By the end the audience was exhausted, never mind the players." Neal Foulds retained his place in the top 16 of the rankings by progressing to the second round with a 10–5 win against Morgan; the highest break of the match was 108 by Foulds in frame nine to lead 6–3. O'Sullivan lost 7–10 against Alan McManus. Everton felt that O'Sullivan had been affected by the pressure, and that his "brilliant were counter-balanced by unforced errors at close quarters." Peter Ebdon had defeated Steve Davis 10–4 in the previous year's championship. In the two months leading up to the 1993 Championship, Davis had won the European Open, the British Open and the Irish Masters, and he beat Ebdon 10–3. Davis remarked that "There were no feelings of revenge. If you have a grudge it's more difficult to play well.
Jimmy White took a 7–2 lead against Swail into the second session of their match, and although Swail won frames ten and eleven, White went on to win 10–4. Alain Robidoux's 6–10 loss to Doug Mountjoy meant that he would drop out of the top 16; Mountjoy commented after that he sensed that Robidoux had played "with fear in his heart". Dennis Taylor's 10–9 win against Tony Drago was sealed with a break of 46 in the after Drago had missed an attempt to pot a red after a poor positional shot. Terry Griffiths won the first six frames against David Roe, and Roe won the next four frames. Griffiths compiled a break of 133 in frame 12, and won the match 10–6.
James Wattana made a break of 103 in the seventh frame of his 10–7 win against Tony Jones. Steve James made two century breaks, 106 and 138, while establishing an 8–1 lead against Giles and won the match 10–2 after needing a to take frame 12. Willie Thorne won five of the nine frames of the first session against Mellish. Mellish was again only one frame behind at 6–7, then Thorne took three consecutive frames to prevail 10–6. O'Connor won frame six as he lost 1–10 to 1991 champion John Parrott.
Second round
The second round, which took place between 22 and 26 April, was played as best-of-25-frames matches spread over three sessions. Hendry won both of the first two sessions against Morgan 6–2, and had a break of 113 in frame 16. He won 13–4. Bond recovered from 2–4 down to lead Wilkinson 9–7, and won 13–9.
Foulds had never beaten Clark in any of their four previous meetings in ranking tournaments, but led 6–2 after the first session, then 10–6 after the second session, and won 13–7. Davis made the highest break of the tournament, and the fourth-highest in championship history, with a 144 in the third frame against McManus. Despite this, he trailed 1–4 before levelling at 4–4. McManus built a 12–9 lead, which Davis narrowed by winning the next two frames. After Davis missed an attempt to pot the in frame 24, McManus cleared the to win 13–11. Speaking after the match, Davis said about the missed blue, "I'm not upset about missing it. You're allowed to miss balls in this championship."
White compiled five breaks over 50, including a 108 as he built a 5–3 lead against Mountjoy. From 11–5 at the end of the second session, he beat Mountjoy 13–6. Griffiths and Taylor faced each other at the championship for the first time since the 1979 final; Taylor won 13–11 in a match that lasted over 13 hours and finished at 1:40 am.
Wattana made three century breaks in his 13–7 defeat of James: a 110 in frame six and 104s in frames 10 and 13. Thorne and Parrott were level at 4–4 after their first session, but Parrott took the next five frames and eventually won 13–9.
Quarter-finals