Alan McManus

This led to him being ranked 31st in the Order of Merit, just missing out on the top 28 players that qualified for the finals.

Alan McManus (born 21 January 1971) is a Scottish retired professional snooker player and current commentator and pundit for ITV and Eurosport on snooker coverage.

In what became the highlight of his career, he claimed the Masters title at Wembley defeating Stephen Hendry 9–8 in the final and thus ending Hendry's unbeaten run in the tournament, which dated back to 1989.

He would also win the tournaments' highest break prize, £10,000 for a 132 total clearance in the sixth frame of his first-round match against Nigel Bond.

A mainstay of the world's top sixteen during the 1990s and 2000s, he has won two ranking events, the 1994 Dubai Classic and the 1996 Thailand Open, and competed in the World Championship semi-finals in 1992, 1993 and 2016.

He was ranked in the Top 16 from 1990 to 2006, dropping out after an unsuccessful 2005/2006 season.

His highest ranking was sixth (in 1993/94 and 1996/97).

McManus has reached twenty-one professional semi-finals, but won only four events.

He has reached the semi-finals of the World Championship three times, but has never appeared in a final.

He also won the 1994 Masters, ending Stephen Hendry's five-year, 23-match unbeaten streak at the tournament with a 9–8 victory in the final.

McManus announced his retirement on 9 April 2021 after losing 6–3 to Bai Langning in the second qualifying round of the 2021 World Snooker Championship.

McManus has long been considered a consistently good player, having a record of fourteen consecutive seasons in the Top 16, but never managed to achieve the success of his contemporaries Stephen Hendry, Ken Doherty, Ronnie O'Sullivan, John Higgins and Mark Williams.

At the 1994 Masters, McManus defeated Nigel Bond by 5–2 in the first round, Ken Doherty 5–1 in the quarter-finals, and then Neal Foulds 6–4 in the semi-final to set up his first triple crown tournament final against defending champion and fellow Scot Stephen Hendry.

He then defeated 1995 World finalist Nigel Bond 10–8 in the penultimate qualifying round.

McManus's resilience in snooker matchplay is shown by the fact that the first whitewash of his professional career came in his 0–5 defeat by Peter Ebdon at the 1998 Grand Prix, his 312th match as a professional player.

His last major final was at the 2002 LG Cup at the Preston Guild Hall where he lost 5–9 to fellow-countryman Chris Small.

Until 2005, he had gone eleven years without reaching the quarter-finals of the tournament, despite consistent achievements in other events.

A series of poor results in the 2005/2006 season saw him drop out of the top 16 for the first time since 1991.

He reached the semi-finals of the 2006 Snooker Grand Prix, losing to Neil Robertson.

In the final qualifying round he led Tom Ford 5–4 after the first session; he then reeled off five of the next six frames to book his place at the Crucible Theatre for the first time since 2006.

In the first round he lost to Ding Junhui 5–10, winning £12,000.

He lost a World Championship qualifier 9–10 to journeyman Joe Delaney in 2007.

This loss began an extremely quiet six-to-seven-year period for McManus, who then failed to qualify for any UK or World Championships between 2007 and 2013, and also struggled to qualify for the other ranking events (during the period between the 2006 Grand Prix and the 2013 Welsh Open, he failed to qualify for the main stages of 42 ranking events).

This loss of form saw him quickly drop out of the top 16, then out of the top 32.

His poor form reached a trough in the 2009/2010 season, where he failed to qualify for any of the main stages of the tournaments he took part in.

McManus was unable to qualify for any of the major venues during the 2011–12 season and he finished it ranked as number 52 in the world.

He made a good start to the 2012–13 season, beating Tony Drago and Robert Milkins to qualify for the final stages of the Australian Goldfields Open in Bendigo; there he beat local wildcard James Mifsud 5–0, before exiting the tournament by the same scoreline against Ding Junhui.

At the 2013 Welsh Open, McManus reached his first quarter-final since the 2006 Grand Prix, with a 4–2 win over the number 16 seed Barry Hawkins, followed by a dramatic comeback to beat Joe Perry 4–3, after having trailed 0–3.

He was beaten in the quarter-final 3–5 by compatriot Stephen Maguire.

The following tournament, the Haikou World Open, saw McManus win three matches in qualifying to reach the latter stages of the tournament; he then beat local wildcard Lin Shuai 5–3, before facing compatriot John Higgins.

McManus put in a good performance; he ultimately lost 3–5, but picked up valuable ranking points in the process.

He made a good start to the Players Tour Championship, reaching the quarter-finals of the first event, losing to Andrew Higginson by 4 frames to 3.

He carried this good form to the PTC event 2, once again reaching the quarter-finals before losing 1–4 to eventual runner-up Stephen Maguire.

However, McManus only managed four last-32 results from the rest of the events.

At the 2013 World Snooker Championship McManus, in qualifying, beat one of India's rising stars Aditya Mehta 10–9, in an epic encounter that lasted just over 9 hours.

At the start of the 2013–14 season McManus was ranked 49th in the World Rankings.

At the 2013 Wuxi Classic qualifiers he won his match against Darryl Hill 5–3 to qualify for the last 64 of the event held in Wuxi.

At the venue he defeated Ken Doherty 5–3 before losing to Dave Gilbert 2–5.

At the first Asian Tour event, he bested players such as Michael White before beating local favorite Ding Junhui 4–2 in the last 16.

He then defeated Yu Delu 4–1 in the quarter-finals, reaching his first semi-final in nine years.