Ken Doherty

Ken Doherty (born 17 September 1969) is an Irish professional snooker player who was World Snooker Champion in 1997. In addition to his ongoing playing career, he works as a regular commentator and pundit on televised snooker broadcasts. A director since 2012 of the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association, he has also served as inaugural chairman of the WPBSA Players organisation since 2021.

Born in Dublin, Doherty won amateur titles including the World Under-21 Amateur Championship and the World Amateur Championship in 1989. He turned professional in 1990, and reached the first of his 17 ranking finals at the 1992 Grand Prix, losing 9–10 to Jimmy White. He won the first of his six ranking titles several months later at the 1993 Welsh Open, beating Alan McManus 9–7 in the final. These results helped him move up to 11th place in the 1993/1994 rankings, his first season within the top 16. He secured his only world title at the 1997 World Snooker Championship, winning the final 18–12 over five-time defending champion Stephen Hendry. The first player to defeat Hendry at the Crucible since Steve James at the 1991 event, Doherty became the first and only World Champion from the Republic of Ireland and the second World Champion in snooker's modern era from outside the United Kingdom, following Canadian player Cliff Thorburn in 1980. He remains the only player to have won world titles at under-21, amateur, and professional levels.

As defending champion at the 1998 event, Doherty came close to breaking the Crucible curse, but lost 12–18 to John Higgins in the final. He was World Championship runner-up for a second time at the 2003 event, where he lost the final 16–18 to Mark Williams. In other Triple Crown events, Doherty was UK Championship runner-up three times (losing 5–10 to Hendry in 1994, 1–10 to Ronnie O'Sullivan in 2001, and 9–10 to Williams in 2002) and Masters runner-up twice (losing 8–10 to Higgins in 1999 and 8–10 to Matthew Stevens in 2000). In all, Doherty won just one of the eight Triple Crown finals in which he participated. In the 2000 Masters final, he narrowly missed out on a maximum break—and the bonus prize of an £80,000 sports car—when he failed to pot the last black off its spot, ending the break at 140.

Doherty won his last ranking title at the 2006 Malta Cup, defeating Higgins 9–8 in the final, and achieved his career highest ranking of second in the 2006/2007 rankings. Following 15 consecutive seasons within the top 16 in the rankings, he fell to 18th in the 2008/2009 rankings and 44th in the 2009/2010 rankings, after which he never again retained his top-16 standing. He made his last Crucible appearance as a qualifier at the 2014 event, losing 8–13 to McManus in the second round. Relegated from the professional tour at the end of the 2016–17 season, and again at the end of the 2019–20 season, he has remained on the tour through invitational tour cards. He also competes on the World Seniors Tour, where he won the 2018 UK Seniors Championship, defeating Igor Figueiredo 4–1 in the final. He was runner-up to White at the 2020 World Seniors Championship, where he lost the final 4–5, despite having led 4–0.