Andrew Hicks (born 10 August 1973) is an English professional
snooker
Snooker (pronounced , ) is a cue sports, cue sport played on a Billiard table#Snooker and English billiards tables, rectangular table covered with a green cloth called baize, with six Billiard table#Pockets 2, pockets, one at each corner and o ...
player. Nicknamed "The Cream of Devon",
Hicks was a semi-finalist at both the
World Snooker Championship
The World Snooker Championship is the longest-running and most prestigious tournament in professional snooker. It is also the wealthiest, with total prize money in 2022 of £2,395,000, including £500,000 for the winner. First held in 1927 Wor ...
and
UK Championship
The UK Championship is a professional ranking snooker tournament. It is one of snooker's prestigious Triple Crown events, along with the World Championship and the Masters. It is usually held at the Barbican Centre, York. Ronnie O'Sullivan h ...
in 1995, and the same stage at four other ranking tournaments. A
Masters semi-finalist in 1996, he was ranked within the world's top 32 players between 1995 and 2000, and again from 2005 to 2007, but was relegated from the
main tour in 2013. He regained a two-year tour card in 2019.
Career
Although a professional since 1991, Hicks first came to prominence in the
1995 World Championship, in which he reached the semi-finals, beating
Steve Davis
Steve Davis (born 22 August 1957) is an English retired professional snooker player who is currently a Sports commentator, commentator, musician, DJ, and author. He is best known for dominating professional snooker during the 1980s, when he rea ...
,
Willie Thorne
William Joseph Thorne (4 March 195417 June 2020) was an English professional snooker player. He won one ranking title, the 1985 Classic. He also reached the final of the 1985 UK Championship, losing 16–14 to Steve Davis after leading 13–8 ...
and
Peter Ebdon
Peter David Ebdon (born 27 August 1970) is an English former snooker player. The winner of the 2002 World Snooker Championship, Ebdon won nine world ranking events, placing twelfth on the all-time list of ranking tournament winners. In addit ...
along the way, but being blocked from the finals by
Nigel Bond
Nigel Bond (born 15 November 1965) is an English former professional snooker player.
Bond competed on the main tour from 1989 to 2022, and was ranked within the world's top 16 players between 1992 and 1999, peaking at 5th for the 1996–97 s ...
, 11–16.
He has never reached a major final, but reached the semi-finals of the four BBC-screened events within 2 seasons – the 1994
Grand Prix
Grand Prix ( , meaning ''Grand Prize''; plural Grands Prix), is a name sometimes used for competitions or sport events, alluding to the winner receiving a prize, trophy or honour
Grand Prix or grand prix may refer to:
Arts and entertainment ...
, the
1995 UK Championship
The 1995 Royal Liver Assurance UK Championship was a professional Snooker world rankings, ranking snooker tournament that took place at the Preston Guild Hall, Guild Hall in Preston, Lancashire, Preston, England. The event started on 17 November 1 ...
and the
1996 Masters (as a wild card).
He spent most of the second half of the 1990s close to the Top-16 elite section in the
world rankings, peaking at no. 17 in the
1995/1996 season, and winning the 1997 Masters qualifier.
He struggled in the early part of the 2000s, however, winning only two of eighty-three matches in 2003.
Later, he was only one loss away from being bumped out of the Top 64, rallying to defeat
Craig Butler
Craig Butler (born December 19, 1988) is a former professional Canadian football defensive back and current special teams coordinator and assistant defensive backs coach for the Hamilton Tiger-Cats of the Canadian Football League (CFL). He played ...
10–9 in a close
2003 World Championship qualifier.
He ended up ranked no. 62 for the
2003/2004 season. At this point, he had only qualified for the world championship once in six years, a 10–4 defeat to eventual winner
Ronnie O'Sullivan
Ronald Antonio O'Sullivan (born 5 December 1975) is an English professional snooker player who is the current world champion and world number one. Widely recognised as one of the most talented and accomplished players in the sport's history, ...
in 2001.
However, he returned to form after this. He reached the second round of the
2004 World Championship, beating
Quinten Hann Quinten may refer to:
People
Surname
* Christopher Quinten (born 1957), British actor Given name
* Quinten Burg (born 1948), American politician
* Quinten Hann (born 1977), Australian snooker player
* Quinten Hermans (born 1995), Belgian cyclist
...
in a match memorable for a near-fight between the two players at the end, started by Hann in the middle of the match, when he said to Hicks: 'I've enjoyed the last three times I've beaten you'. At the end of the match, Hicks retorted that Hann was about to drop out of the Top 16 as a result of the loss.
Hicks later admitted his delight at this. This marked the only time Hicks had won a at
the Crucible
''The Crucible'' is a 1953 play by American playwright Arthur Miller. It is a dramatized and partially fictionalized story of the Salem witch trials that took place in the Massachusetts Bay Colony during 1692–93. Miller wrote the play as a ...
since 1995. He next gave
Ronnie O'Sullivan
Ronald Antonio O'Sullivan (born 5 December 1975) is an English professional snooker player who is the current world champion and world number one. Widely recognised as one of the most talented and accomplished players in the sport's history, ...
a challenge in the second round, before ultimately losing, 11–13.
In
2004–05, Hicks made it to the quarter-finals of the
British Open
The Open Championship, often referred to as The Open or the British Open, is the oldest golf tournament in the world, and one of the most prestigious. Founded in 1860, it was originally held annually at Prestwick Golf Club in Scotland. Later th ...
with a first-round victory over
Ken Doherty
Ken Doherty (born 17 September 1969) is an Irish professional snooker player, commentator and radio presenter.
As an amateur, Doherty won the Irish Amateur Championship twice, the World Under-21 Amateur Championship and the World Amateur C ...
.
Returning to the Top 32, in
the following season he reached the last 32 in four of the six tournaments he entered, and retained his Top 32 status (marginally, at no. 31). He played in the
2006 World Championship, and lost to Steve Davis, 4–10, in the first round.
Although slipping only a single position in the rankings (from no. 30 to no. 31) for
2006/2007, the year was not truly successful for him, and neither was 2006/2007, resulting in a drop down to the no. 41 position for
2007/2008 world rankings. After failing to qualify for the
Welsh Open and
China Open, he contemplated retiring if he could not retain a top-64 ranking.
He has compiled over 100 competitive during his career,
and has scored a maximum break at the UK Championship qualifiers in 2012. Despite winning only one key event, Hicks has career winnings of
GB£562,560 (up to the start of
the 2006/2007 season).
He entered
Q School in May 2018 in a bid to win back his place on the snooker professional tour.
In June 2019, Hicks came through
Q-School - Event 3 by winning six matches to earn a two-year card on the
World Snooker Tour
The World Snooker Tour (WST) is the main professional snooker tour, consisting of approximately 128 players competing on a circuit of up to 28 tournaments each season. The World Snooker Tour is administered by World Snooker Ltd, the commercial ar ...
for the
2019/2020 and
2020–21
The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen b ...
seasons.
Personal life
He currently lives in
Launceston, Cornwall
Launceston ( or , locally or , kw, Lannstevan; rarely spelled Lanson as a local abbreviation) is a town, ancient borough, and civil parish in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It is west of the middle stage of the River Tamar, which c ...
and is the staff pro at Bell's Court Snooker Club in
Falmouth.
Official Homepage of Bell's Court Snooker Club
His wife Rachel was working there when they met; they married in 2005, and had their first child in 2006. He also plays golf, in a local society named after him.
Performance and rankings timeline
Career finals
Non-ranking finals: 4 (1 title)
Amateur finals: 1
References
External links
*
Andy Hicks
at ''worldsnooker.com''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hicks, Andy
1973 births
Living people
Sportspeople from Tavistock
English snooker players
People from Launceston, Cornwall