The 1995 Masters (officially the 1995 Benson & Hedges Masters) is a professional non-

ranking 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 ...

snooker Snooker (pronounced , ) is a cue sport played on a rectangular table covered with a green cloth called baize, with six pockets, one at each corner and one in the middle of each long side. First played by British Army officers stationed in ...

tournament that took place between 5 and 12 February 1995 at the Wembley Conference Centre in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

, England. The wild-card players were

John Higgins John Higgins, (born 18 May 1975) is a Scottish professional snooker player. He has won 31 career ranking titles, placing him in third position on the all-time list of ranking event winners, behind Ronnie O'Sullivan (39) and Stephen Hendry ( ...

, who had won the 1994 Grand Prix, and Mark Williams, who won the 1994 Benson & Hedges Championship. Both of them were 19 years old. Higgins went on to reach the final.

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, ...

defeated Higgins 9–3 in the final to become the youngest ever Masters champion aged 19 years and 69 days. This still remains a record.

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 ...

meanwhile failed to make the final for the first time in his Masters career, losing to

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 ...

4–5 in the quarter-finals.

Overview

The Masters The Masters Tournament (usually referred to as simply The Masters, or the U.S. Masters outside North America) is one of the four major championships in professional golf. Scheduled for the first full week of April, the Masters is the first ma ...

is an invitational

tournament that was first held in

1975 It was also declared the ''International Women's Year'' by the United Nations and the European Architectural Heritage Year by the Council of Europe. Events January * January 1 - Watergate scandal (United States): John N. Mitchell, H. R. ...

, with the top-16 players from the

snooker world rankings The snooker world rankings are the official system of ranking professional snooker players to determine automatic qualification and seeding for tournaments on the World Snooker Tour. The ranking lists are maintained by the sport's governing body, ...

as well as the winner of the Benson & Hedges Championship and a wild card entrant invited to participate for the 1995 competition. It is one of the three Triple Crown events in the game of snooker; the others being 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, it ...

and the

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 ...

. As an invitational event, it carried no world ranking points. The 1995 Masters was the 21st holding of the event, and took place at the Wembley Conference Centre from 5 to 12 February 1995. Sponsored by the tobacco company

Benson & Hedges Benson & Hedges is a British brand of cigarettes owned by American conglomerate Altria. Cigarettes under the ''Benson & Hedges'' name are manufactured worldwide by different companies such as Rothmans, Benson & Hedges, Philip Morris USA, British ...

, the total prize fund was £435,000 with £120,000 being awarded to the winner. The tournament was broadcast in the United Kingdom on

BBC Television BBC Television is a service of the BBC. The corporation has operated a public broadcast television service in the United Kingdom, under the terms of a royal charter, since 1927. It produced television programmes from its own studios from 193 ...

. Every match was played as best-of-nine , before the semi-finals were played as best-of-11 frames, and the final was the best-of-17 frames. Scottish player and World Champion

was installed as the favourite to win the tournament.

Field

Defending champion

Alan McManus Alan McManus (born 21 January 1971) is a Scottish retired professional snooker player and current commentator who works for Eurosport. A mainstay of the world's top sixteen during the 1990s and 2000s, he has won two ranking events, the 1994 Du ...

was the number 1 seed with World Champion Stephen Hendry seeded 2. Places were allocated to the top 16 players in the world rankings. Players seeded 15 and 16 played in the wild-card round against the winner of the qualifying event, Mark Williams (ranked 58), and

(ranked 51), who was the wild-card selection.

Tony Drago Tony Drago (born 22 September 1965) is a Maltese former professional snooker and pool player. Known for his speed around the table, during his snooker career he won two professional titles: the 1993 Strachan Challenge Event 3 and the 1996 G ...

, John Higgins,

Joe Swail Joe Swail (born 29 August 1969) is a Northern Irish former professional snooker player from Belfast. He retired in May 2019 after being relegated from the tour. He has reached ten major ranking semi-finals, including the 2000 and 2001 World ...

and Mark Williams were making their debuts in the Masters.

Wild-card round

In the preliminary round the wild-card players played the 15th and 16th seeds:

Main draw

Final

Qualifying

Mark Williams won the qualifying tournament, known as the 1994 Benson & Hedges Championship at the time.

Century breaks

There were a total of 13 century breaks made by a total of 8 players during the tournament's main stage. * 141, 112

* 132

* 131, 129, 103

* 125

Terry Griffiths Terence Martin Griffiths (born 16 October 1947) is a Welsh retired professional snooker player and current snooker coach and pundit. In his second professional tournament, he became world champion when he won the 1979 World Snooker Champions ...

* 111, 106, 104

* 104

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 ...

* 104

* 102

Tony Drago's century and John Higgins's 106 were scored in the wild-card round.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:1995 Masters (Snooker) Masters (snooker) Masters Snooker Masters Snooker February 1995 sports events in the United Kingdom