Ryan Day

Ryan Day (born 23 March 1980) is a Welsh professional snooker player.

He is a prolific break-builder, having compiled over 450 century breaks during his career, including four maximum breaks.

He is a three-time World Championship quarter-finalist, has been ranked at no. 6 in the world and has won four ranking tournaments.

Day was born in Pontycymer, Bridgend.

A top amateur, he reached the final of the IBSF Championship in China in November 1998 but lost on the final black.

Day began his professional career by playing UK Tour in 1998, at the time the second-level professional tour.

He was named Young Player of Distinction of the season 2000/2001 by the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA).

He won the 2001 Benson & Hedges Championship.

He also won the WPBSA Challenge Tour in the 2001/2002 season and was named WPBSA Newcomer of the Year in 2002.

With this win, he qualified for the 2002 Masters, where he defeated Dave Harold, before losing 0–6 to Stephen Hendry.

Due to problems with his liver in 2003, his results suffered badly.

In 2004, however, he qualified for the World Snooker Championship and he led John Higgins 9–7 in the first round, becoming the first player to score three in his first Crucible match, but missed a pink in the 17th frame that would have left Higgins needing a snooker to stay in the tournament.

Higgins went on to win the frame and the next two for the match.

As some consolation, Higgins commented that Day was "going to be a top player for many years to come".

Day reached the quarter-finals of his home tournament, the 2005 Welsh Open defeating Ali Carter and Steve Davis along the way.

He finished this season ranked 33, but as Quinten Hann did not participate in any events, Day was always among the top 32 seeds, meaning one less qualifying match than he would otherwise have faced.

Back at the Crucible in 2006, he beat Joe Perry 10–3 in the first round and led Ronnie O'Sullivan 9–7 in the second round before losing 10–13.

He narrowly missed reaching the top 16 of the rankings as a result.

The 2006/2007 season was the most successful of his career up till then.

Day reached the quarter-finals of the 2006 Northern Ireland Trophy and was runner up in the 2007 Malta Cup, losing 4–9 to Shaun Murphy.

That year's performance saw him ranked 16 in the world for the 2007/2008 season, one place higher than in the previous year.

As a member of the Top 16, he automatically qualified for tournaments.

Day's 2007/2008 season started with an appearance in the final of the Shanghai Masters; Day led his practise partner Dominic Dale 6–2 after the first session, but eventually succumbed to a 6–10 defeat.

After failing to progress past the last 16 in the next three tournaments, he reached the semi-finals of the China Open, beating Matthew Stevens, Ken Doherty and Mark Williams before he was beaten by Stephen Maguire 5–6, denying him a place in the final.

Day made it through to the quarter-finals of the World Championship for the first time in his career by beating Irishman Michael Judge 10–6 and the defending champion John Higgins 13–9 in one of the best wins of his career, before losing 7–13 to Stephen Hendry.

His consistent performances took him up to 8th place in the rankings.

Day reached the final of the 2008 Grand Prix where he lost to John Higgins, defeating Ricky Walden, Mark Selby, Jamie Cope and Ali Carter.

The year ended on a disappointing note when he lost in the first round at the UK Championship to Matthew Stevens.

He again reached the World Championship quarter-finals in 2009, before losing 11–13 to Mark Allen.

However, he continued to move up the rankings, climbing two places to number 6, the highest ranked player not to have won a ranking event.

A disappointing 2009–10 season in which he reached only one quarter-final (in the Welsh Open), culminated in an 8–10 first round defeat in the World Championship to Mark Davis.

This continued into the next season where he made a number of early exits which meant that at the first revision under the new ranking system he dropped out of the top 16, down to number 20.

Day qualified for five of the eight ranking tournaments during the 2011–12 season, but lost in the first round in four of them.

His best performance came at the end of the season in the biggest event on the tournament calendar, the World Championship.

He came back from 3–7 down in his qualifying match against Gerard Greene to win 10–8, to set up a first round match with China's number 1, Ding Junhui.

Day produced another comeback, this time from trailing 6–9 to win the last four frames and advance to the second round.

There he beat fellow qualifier Cao Yupeng 13–7 and held a 5–2 lead in the early stages of his quarter-final match against compatriot Matthew Stevens.

However, he suffered a migraine at the start of the next session and went on to lose 11 consecutive frames to exit the tournament 5–13.

Day finished the season ranked world number 30.

Day lost in qualifying for the opening ranking event of the 2012–13 season the Wuxi Classic 0–5 to Robert Milkins.