Barry Hawkins

He finished 22nd on the Order of Merit, inside the top 24 who qualified.

In the Finals he lost in the first round 3–4 to Jack Lisowski.

Hawkins won the non-ranking Snooker Shoot-Out, a tournament where the winner of each round is determined by a single 10-minute frame.

He beat Graeme Dott in the final and picked up a cheque for £32,000, the biggest of his career to date.

Hawkins' best run in the ranking events came in the final and biggest tournament of the season, the World Championship.

Barry Hawkins (born 23 April 1979) is an English professional snooker player from Ditton, Kent.

He turned professional in 1996, but only rose to prominence in the 2004–05 snooker season, when he reached the last 16 of the 2004 UK Championship, the quarter-finals of the 2004 British Open and the semi-finals of the 2005 Welsh Open.

He has now spent twelve successive seasons ranked inside the top 32.

He reached the Top 32 in the rankings in 2004/2005, having reached the semi-finals of 2005's Welsh Open, as well as the last sixteen of three other tournaments.

In 2005/2006, he reached the semi-finals of the Grand Prix and the Welsh Open again, and also beat the high-ranked Ding Junhui to qualify for the World Championship for the first time.

Hawkins played in the televised stages of every World Championship between his Crucible Theatre debut in 2006, and his failure to qualify in 2023.

This cemented Hawkins' place in the Top 16 of the rankings for the 2006/2007 season.

At the World Championship in Sheffield, however, Hawkins faced former Champion Ken Doherty in the first round, and in the intimidating Crucible Theatre lost 10–1.

He told the BBC that "I just couldn't perform and I don't know why... I'm gutted after such a good season to have performed like that."

The 2006/2007 season saw Hawkins disappointed following two strong seasons.

He reached the final of the non-ranking Kilkenny Irish Masters, however his only run past the last 16 in a ranking event was at the China Open, when he reached the semi-finals, again beating Ding along the way.

He had one foot in his first final against Jamie Cope in the semi-final, but Cope was able to obtain the snookers he needed to stay in the match and went on to win 6–5.

A first-round defeat by Fergal O'Brien at the World Championship cost him his Top 16 place, and left him outside the Top 32 on the single-year rankings.

From 2006 to 2010, Hawkins's record at the World Championship was unsuccessful, with a win–loss record of 0–5.

As well as the aforementioned one-sided defeat by Doherty, Hawkins narrowly lost in the first round the following two years as well, to Fergal O'Brien and Ali Carter respectively.

Coincidentally, on both occasions Hawkins lost by very close 10–9 defeats, having recovered from 9–6 behind each time.

Early in the 2007/2008 season, Hawkins won the qualifying tournament for the 2008 SAGA Insurance Masters, beating Kurt Maflin.

He won five other matches, also beating top-32 players Nigel Bond and Jamie Cope.

He also reached the last 16 at the Grand Prix, UK Championship and China Open.

He started the 2008–09 season with a quarter-final appearance at the 2008 Northern Ireland Trophy, by beating Jimmy White 5–3, Marco Fu 5–2 and Ryan Day 5–3 where he played Ronnie O'Sullivan, losing 5–4 after producing a brave fightback from 4–1 to level at 4–4.

He then won at least his opening match in the next four ranking events, reaching the provisional top 16.

He did not qualify for the events in Wales and China, but made it to the World Championship by beating Daniel Wells 10–9, but lost in the first round, finishing one place short of a return to the top 16.

In 2009 Hawkins missed out on a chance to take his match with former champion Graeme Dott to a deciding frame, and lost 10–8.

The following year, Hawkins led defending champion John Higgins 5–3 before Higgins won seven of the next eight frames to progress.

Hawkins played well at the World Open (formerly the Grand Prix) in defeating Mark Selby (3–2) as well as former World Champion Ken Doherty (3–1) before losing 4–2 to Mark Williams.

Hawkins qualified for the World Championship for the sixth year running, where he was drawn against Stephen Maguire in the first round.

Having never won a match at the Crucible before, Hawkins led Maguire 4–0, 5–1, 6–2 and 8–4 before seeing Maguire level the match at 8–8 and then 9–9.

However, Hawkins held his nerve in the deciding frame to finally end his losing run at the World Championship.

In the second round, Hawkins was defeated 13–12 by world No. 11 Mark Allen.

He lost in the first round on his first five appearances, but reached the second round in 2011 and 2012.

Hawkins reached the PTC Finals in the 2011–12 season largely thanks to semi-final runs in Event 3 and Event 5.

Hawkins reached his first ranking final and won his first ranking title at the 2012 Australian Goldfields Open.

Rated an 80–1 outsider for the 2013 World Snooker Championship before the tournament began, he defeated opponents including world number1 Mark Selby and top Chinese player Ding Junhui to reach the final, which he lost to defending champion Ronnie O'Sullivan.

Hawkins has since reached the semi-finals of the World Championship in 2014, 2015, 2017 and 2018, and he was runner-up in the Masters in 2016 and 2022.

Before taking up snooker professionally, Hawkins was an office clerk.