The 1991 Masters (officially the 1991 Benson & Hedges Masters) was a professional non-
ranking 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 ...
tournament that took place between 3 and 10 February 1991 at the
Wembley Conference Centre in London, England. The highest break of the tournament was a 135 compiled by
Dennis Taylor, for which he earned £7,500.
In the final,
defending champion Stephen Hendry performed what is considered to be one of the greatest comebacks in snooker history, when he defeated
Mike Hallett 9–8, after trailing 0–7 and 2–8 earlier in the match.
World number 1 Hendry went into the final as a firm 1/6 favourite, and with 9–3 Hendry being the most favoured score with the bookies, but world number 7 Hallett played one of the most dominant snooker sessions by an underdog to win all 7 frames of the afternoon session to take a 7–0 lead. In the first frame of the evening session, Hallett missed the final pink that would have made it 8–0, with Hendry then potting the pink and black to win his first frame of the match. Hendry reduced his arrears to 2–7, but then Hallett made it 8–2 and just one frame from victory. With the Masters title in his sights, Hallett just needed to pot the final pink and black in the eleventh frame to win the match, but he narrowly missed the pink with the
rest, allowing Hendry to pot the pink to win the frame and reduce his arrears to 3–8. Despite Hallett having numerous chances in the following six frames, including in the last frame where Hallett led until the last few balls, Hendry eventually made a historic recovery to win 9–8.
Places in the tournament were allocated to the top 16 players in the
world rankings
A ranking is a relationship between a set of items such that, for any two items, the first is either "ranked higher than", "ranked lower than" or "ranked equal to" the second.
In mathematics, this is known as a weak order or total preorder of o ...
. World number one Stephen Hendry was the number 1 seed. Players seeded 15 and 16 (
Tony Meo and
Alain Robidoux
Alain Robidoux (born July 25, 1960) is a Canadian retired professional snooker player. Robidoux played on the sport's main tour from 1987 to 2004 and continues to play in events in Canada.
Career
He was born in Saint-Jérôme, Quebec and joined ...
) competed in the wild-card round against
Alan McManus, who was the winner of the
qualifying event
The Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1985 (COBRA) is a law passed by the U.S. Congress on a reconciliation basis and signed by President Ronald Reagan that, among other things, mandates an insurance program which gives some em ...
, and
Gary Wilkinson (ranked 19), who was the wild-card selection.
Martin Clark (ranked 12), Alan McManus, Alain Robidoux, and Gary Wilkinson were making their Masters debuts.
Wild-card round
Main draw
Final
Qualifying Event
Alan McManus won the qualifying tournament, known as the 1990
Benson & Hedges Satellite Championship at the time beating
James Wattana 9–5 in the final to qualify for the main tournament at Wembley. The tournament was played at the Masters Club in
Glasgow between 1 and 6 December 1990.
Century breaks
Total: 9
* 135
Dennis Taylor
* 131, 117, 114
Stephen Hendry
* 125
Mike Hallett
* 107
Doug Mountjoy
* 108, 101
Jimmy White
* 101
Steve James
References
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Masters (snooker)
Masters
Masters (snooker)
Masters (snooker)
Masters (snooker)