Franky Chan (born 17 March 1965) is a former 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 from

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...

Career

Born in 1965, Chan turned professional in 1990. Having had experience of competitive snooker in the Hong Kong Masters and the 1988 Kent Cup, he defeated veteran

Mike Darrington Mike Darrington (born 13 September 1931) is an English former professional snooker player. Career As an amateur, Darrington was the Home Counties snooker champion seven times, and defeated Steve Davis in the 1978 English Amateur Championship. ...

in the 1990 Professional Play-offs to secure a place as a professional for the 1990/1991 season. Chan's first season on tour brought him immediate success, with runs to the last 16 at two ranking events, the Asian Open and the Dubai Classic, and to the last-32 stage at the 1991 British Open. In the 1990 Asian Open, held in China, he defeated Jason Smith,

David Roe David Roe (born 11 September 1965) is a former English professional snooker player, and a four-time ranking tournament quarter-finalist. Career Roe was born on 11 September 1965 in Derby. He began his professional career for the 1986–87 sno ...

, Wayne Jones and

Darren Morgan Darren Morgan (born 3 May 1966) is a Welsh former professional snooker player who now competes as an amateur. Morgan won the World Amateur Championship in 1987 and played on the professional main tour from 1988 until 2006. He earned just ov ...

, before losing 1–5 to

Tony Chappel Tony Chappel (born 28 May 1960) is a former Welsh professional snooker player from Pontarddulais in Swansea, whose career spanned seventeen years from 1984 to 2001. Career Throughout his career Chappel produced some notable wins. Some of the ...

; the Dubai Classic saw victories over Joe Grech,

Nigel Gilbert Geoffrey Nigel Gilbert (born 21 March 1950) is a British sociologist and a pioneer in the use of agent-based models in the social sciences. He is the founder and director of the ''Centre for Research in Social Simulation'' ( University of Sur ...

Cliff Wilson Clifford Wilson (10 May 193421 May 1994) was a Welsh professional snooker player who reached the highest ranking of 16, in 1988-89. He was the 1978 World Amateur Champion and won the 1991 World Seniors Championship. He was a successful juni ...

and

Jimmy White James Warren White (born 2 May 1962) is an English professional snooker player who has won three seniors World titles. Nicknamed "The Whirlwind" because of his fluid, attacking style of play, White is the 1980 World Amateur Champion, 2009 ...

, but Chan was beaten 2–5 by another senior player,

Rex Williams Desmond Rex Williams (born 20 July 1933) is a retired English professional snooker and billiards player. He was the second player to make an official maximum break, achieving this in an exhibition match in December 1965. Williams won the Worl ...

. In the British Open, Chan was defeated 5–0 by

Stephen Hendry Stephen Gordon Hendry (born 13 January 1969) is a Scottish professional snooker player who dominated the sport during the 1990s, becoming one of the most successful players in its history. After turning professional in 1985 at age 16, Hendry ...

; having started the season without a ranking, he finished it 53rd, already within the top 64 who automatically kept their place on tour for the following season. In the non-ranking 1991 Belgian Challenge, Chan reached the quarter-finals, where he faced White again, and this time lost 0–5; however, only sixteen players featured in the event and Chan had won his last-16 match against

Neal Foulds Neal Foulds (born 13 July 1963) is an English former professional snooker player and six-time tournament winner, including the 1986 International Open, the 1988 Dubai Masters and the 1992 Scottish Masters, as well as the invitational Pot Blac ...

to reach this stage. Later in the 1991/1992 season, he recorded the best finish of his career when he faced

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 ...

in the quarter-finals of the ranking 1992 Strachan Challenge. Chan took the third frame with a break of 69, but Bond prevailed 5–1. Chan finished the season ranked 42nd, also a career-best. The next two seasons saw a sharp downturn in form, and by the end of the 1993/1994 season, Chan had slipped to 118th. That season he had recorded his first and only century break, a 118 in a Grand Prix qualifying match against David Grimwood, but after losing 3–5 to Darryn Walker in qualifying for the 1994 British Open, Chan did not play competitive snooker again. He was relegated from the tour, ranked 310th, in 1996.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Chan, Franky Hong Kong snooker players Living people 1965 births