1991 World Seniors Championship

The 1991 World Seniors Championship was a professional snooker tournament that took place from 18 to 22 September 1991 at Trentham Gardens in Stoke-on-Trent, England. It was the first staging of the World Seniors Championship and was contested by sixteen players aged 40 or more, including several former World Snooker Champions. The event was promoted by Barry Hearn and sanctioned by the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association.

Cliff Wilson won his first professional title, aged 57, by defeating Eddie Charlton by 5 to 4 in the final, after trailing 2–4. Doug Mountjoy made the highest of the tournament, 110, against Mike Massey in the first round. The final was followed by an unofficial World Trickshot Championship won by Terry Griffiths. The World Seniors Championship was not held again until 2010.

Overview

The 1991 World Seniors Championship was the inaugural event of its kind. It was promoted by Barry Hearn and featured sixteen players. The minimum age for participants was 40, and all eligible former world champions were offered the opportunity to participate. After this, apart from two wild card players chosen by Hearn, Mike Massey and Michael Ferreira, the remaining places were filled by the eight-highest ranked players aged 40 or over in the Snooker world rankings 1991/1992. Six-time world champion Ray Reardon declined an invitation to compete, and was replaced in the draw by Murdo MacLeod. All matches were the best-of-nine .

The event was sanctioned by the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA), and held from 18 to 22 September 1991 at Trentham Gardens in Stoke-on-Trent. There was television coverage on satellite channel Screensport on 20, 21 and 22 September, including live coverage of the semi-finals and final.

Prize fund

The breakdown of prize money is shown below:

*Winner: £16,000
*Runner-up: £8,000
*Semi-finalist: £4,000
*Quarter-finalist: £2,000
*Last 16: £1,000
*Highest break: £2,000
*Total: £50,000

Summary

The first day of play saw three 5–0 whitewashes: by Terry Griffiths, who eliminated the oldest player in the field, 78-year-old Fred Davis; by Cliff Wilson against Rex Williams; and by Eddie Charlton over John Spencer. Alex Higgins, whose one year ban from playing snooker had elapsed six weeks previously, led Silvino Francisco 3–2 after compiling a 108 in the fifth frame. The match went to a , which was won by Francisco when he made a from the last to the . After the match, Higgins told reporters that Francisco had distracted him during the match: "he threatened to fight me in a boxing ring. Winning the ournamentmeant a lot to me, but he just wouldn't sit down when I was playing my shots." Francisco responded that the pace at which Higgins played meant that he "just didn't have enough time to move to my chair." Dennis Taylor won the first frame against three-time world amateur English billiards champion Ferreira, but lost the next two frames, before going on to win 5–2. The nine-ball pool specialist Massey recovered from 0–3 to 2–3 against Doug Mountjoy, but won no further frames. Mountjoy compiled a break of 110 in the sixth frame. McLeod defeated John Virgo, who was ranked 41 places above him, 5–4, and Colin Roscoe eliminated Cliff Thorburn 5–3.

Against expectations, Wilson defeated Mountjoy 5–4 in the quarter-finals, despite Mountjoy compiling breaks of 36, 41, 97, 39 and 97. Francisco recovered from 0–3 to 3–3 against Charlton, but lost the next two frames. Taylor defeated Roscoe 5–2, and Griffiths, whose highest break in the match was 34, eliminated MacLeod 5–2.

In the semi-finals, Charlton defeated Taylor, who had been the pre-tournament favourite to win the title, 5–3. Charlton recorded breaks of 62, 52, 65, and, in the last frame, 103, during the match, and reached his first major final for 16 years. Griffiths and Wilson were level at 3–3; Wilson won the seventh frame then added the eight, in which he made a 50 break to complete a 5–3 win.

Wilson recovered from 2–4 behind against Charlton to win the final 5–2, and claim his first professional title. Charlton made a breaks of 87 in the first frame and won it by 120 points to zero. Wilson won the second and third frames, before breaks of 53 and 55 by Charlton contributed to him taking a 4–2 lead. In the next three frames, Wilson had breaks of 36, 51 and 52; he won the by 77 points to 8. According to the match report in '' Snooker Scene'' magazine, Charlton, who had twice been runner-up in the world snooker championship and once in the World Professional Billiards Championship, "started to falter in a fashion all too familiar with his failures on the brink of other world titles" when leading 4–2. In the same issue, Wilson was described as "handicapped by shoulder and eyesight problems, eremains one of the best single ball potters in the game". One of the oldest competitors in the competition, at 57, Wilson's prize money of £16,000 was more than twice his previous highest earnings from a tournament, £7,500 for reaching the quarter-finals of the 1987 Mercantile Credit Classic.

The next world seniors championship was in 2010. In the interim there was a 1997 Seniors Pot Black and the 2000 World Seniors Masters.

Main draw

Numbers in brackets denote seedings.

Final

Numbers in parentheses indicate breaks of 50 or more. Scores in bold are winning scores.

Century breaks

There were three century breaks made during the tournament:
* 110 Doug Mountjoy
* 108 Alex Higgins
* 103 Eddie Charlton

World Trickshot Championship

After the final, an unofficial World Trickshot championship was held. It was not approved by the WPBSA. The judges, including Steve Davis, held up cards showing their marks for each shot, in the manner of judges for ice skating, and Jeremy Beadle was the compere. Francisco, Griffiths and Massey were tied for first place on 57 points; Griffiths took the title, and £3,000 prize money, by winning a "" play-off.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:World Seniors Championship, 1991
1991
1991 in snooker
1991 in English sport
Sport in Stoke-on-Trent
World Seniors