Jimmy White

James Warren White (born 2 May 1962) is an English professional snooker player who has won four seniors World titles.

After winning the English Amateur Championship in 1979, a year later he became the youngest ever winner of the World Amateur Snooker Championship, aged 18, a record since surpassed by Ian Preece and Hossein Vafaei.

With a host of major titles and achievements, including ten ranking tournaments, White's overall record ranks him well up the list of snooker's most successful players.

The BBC describes him as a "legend".

Nicknamed "The Whirlwind" because of his fluid, swift and attacking style of play, White is the 1980 World Amateur Champion, 2009 Six-red World champion, a record four-time World Seniors Champion (2010, 2019, 2020, 2023), 2019 Seniors 6-Red World Champion and 1984 World Doubles champion with Alex Higgins.

1980 opened with him winning the Demmy Pro-Am, defeating Tony Knowles 5–1, Willie Thorne 5–1, Dave Martin 5–1, Alex Higgins 5–3 and Steve Davis in the final 5–2.

Davis beat White in the semi-finals of the Invitation tournament at Louth Town & Country Club.

Having beaten Thorne, again, 5–3, Davis pipped White 6–5.

White made an unsuccessful defence of his English Amateur title when he lost to Mike Darrington in the semi-finals of the Southern Area, 5–8, having beaten Dave Gilbert 8–5 and Geoff Foulds 8–2.

Tony Knowles beat him in an early round of the Pegasus Snooker Club Pro-Am 3–1 and he had to scratch for being late in the London & South Area of the British Junior Championships having earlier beaten Neal Foulds 3–1.

Charlie Gay knocked him out of the Westward Ho!

tournament 2–0 and in a qualifying round of the Pontins Spring Open, he lost to Maurice Suckling.

Defeats to Greg Baxter, in an early round of the Heineken Lager Open and to Joe Johnson in the North Ormesby Invitation preceded a trip to the Canadian Open where he beat Vic Harris 9–8 before losing to Alex Higgins 7–9.

A left-hander, he reached the World Professional Championship Final on six occasions (1984, 1990–1994) but failed to win the sport's most prestigious title since his first attempt in 1981.

White has won two of snooker's three majors: the UK Championship (in 1992) and the Masters (in 1984) and a total of ten ranking events.

He is currently eleventh on the all-time list of ranking event winners.

White is one of only seven players to have completed a maximum break at the Crucible Theatre, doing so in the 1992 World Snooker Championship.

He has compiled more than 300 century breaks during his career.

White's greatest achievement of his young career was in winning the English Amateur Championships.

In the London Section, he beat M Goodchild 4–0, D Asbury 4–3, R Birt 4–0, Tony Meo 4–2 in the semi-finals and Danny Adds 4–1 in the final.

This took him to the Southern Area proper where he beat Mark Wildman 4–3, Meirion Williams 4–3, George Eaton 5–3 and Cliff Wilson 8–5 in the final.

Dave Martin, who won the Northern Section, was beaten 13–10 in the final itself.

He suffered a couple of unexpected losses after this – to Walt Ley in the Westward Ho!

Open semi-final, 2–3 and to Dave Gilbert, 2–3, in the London Final of the British Junior (U-19) Championships 1–3 (White made a break of 105 in an earlier round).

He came back, however, by retaining the Wandsworth Classic beating Tony O'Beirne, Wally West and Dave Gilbert in the last three rounds and also reaching the final of the Pontins Spring Open (out of 1034 entries), beating Doug Mountjoy 4–1, Neville Suthers 4–1, John Howell 4–0 and Paul Medati 4–1 before losing 3–7 to Steve Davis, despite Davis giving White thirty points start per frame.

He was knocked out of the 1st round of the Pontins junior competition by John Carney.

In the Lucania Junior Masters, he was beaten on frame countback but showed his class to reach the final of the Warners Open, losing to Tony Meo 2–5, having beaten John Law, John Virgo and Nick Fairall.

Steve Davis beat him again, this time 4–0 in the North Ormesby Invitation (after having beaten Willie Thorne 4–0 in the quarter-final) and then lost in the next three tournaments to Dennis Hughes 1–5 (Demmy Manchester Classic), B Jones (Pontins Autumn Open) and Roy Connor.

In the Canadian Open, he defeated Tony Knowles 9–5 but lost 3–9 to Steve Davis in the last 16.

He reached six World Championship finals but never won the event; the closest he came was in 1994 when he lost in a final-frame decider against Stephen Hendry.

He spent 21 seasons ranked in snooker's elite top 16.

In team events, he won the Nations Cup and the World Cup with England.

He is one of a select number of players to have made over 300 century breaks in professional competition.

White was also the first left-handed player, and the second player overall, to record a maximum break at the World Championship.

White was born in Streathbourne Road, Tooting, London, England, and studied at Ernest Bevin School.

He never achieved academic success, as he was often truant from school from the age of eight or nine, spending more and more time at Ted Zanoncelli's snooker hall.

It was around this time that White met Tony Meo, with whom he would compete in money matches in many venues.

His natural aptitude for snooker led to a successful amateur career.

Nonetheless, his consistency waned in the 2000s and a first-round defeat in the 2006 World Championship saw White drop out of the world's top 32 player rankings.

White's continued slide down the rankings saw him drop to 65th but he recovered slightly to move up to no. 56 for the 2009–10 season.