Snooker's greatest decade

Not the 1980's when snooker was the most watched sport in the UK. Not the 2010's when snooker became one of the most watched sports in the world. Our sport's greatest decade doesn't even follow a calendar decade.

In most sports, comparing eras is very controversial. For example, in football how do you compare Pelé to Lionel Messi if they never met? Same in tennis, with Rod Laver and Roger Federer. Or in basketball, with Michael Jordan and LeBron James. 

In most discussions, we just asume that the sport's standard has evolved as all things in life does, and we're usually putting nowadays players or teams at the top of any "G.O.A.T." debate. But in snooker, regardless of how much the game has (or hasn't) evolved, we're privileged and I'll let you know you why.

There was once a time in snooker when all the players that are regarded as the greatest players of all time were whether at their peak, or still able to play their best snooker to a consistent basis even if past or previous to their career peaks.

Let's make clear though, who are the greatest players of all time (no order here): Steve Davis (six times World Champion in the 80's), Stephen Hendry (seven times World Champion in the 90's), John Higgins (four times World Champion from 1998 to 2011), Mark Williams (three times World Champion from 2000 to 2018) and Ronnie O'Sullivan (six times World Champion from 2001 to 2020).

There was a particular moment in time, the nine years from 1997 to 2005, that all of these players were - still or already - at the top (during that time they also had quality oppositions not mentioned here, such as Jimmy White, Ken Doherty, Paul Hunter, Matthew Stevens and Peter Ebdon). In that period, Steve Davis beat Ronnie O'Sullivan in the Masters final (1997) and also reached a UK Champioship final (2005). And of course, by 2010 Steve Davis was still able to mix with the very best - that year he made the quarterfinals of the World Championship beating the then defending champion John Higgins. As for Stephen Hendry, he won a couple world titles in this period and made his last final in 2002, and it's worth a mention that he was world number one in as late as 2007. John Higgins himself won his maiden world title in 1998 and by 1999 he had completed the Triple Crown and got to world number one.

From 1997 to 2005 Ronnie O'Sullivan did what he's been doing for the past 30 years too, he won trophies. Two world titles, two UK titles and one Masters title, as well as getting to world number one too. As for Mark Williams, he was peaking back then and spent most of these years as world number one. Highlight to the seasons 1999/2000 (won the UK Championship and the World Championship) and 2002/2003 (won the UK Championship, the Masters and the World Championship).

Now that you know what 1997 to 2005 was like in snooker, it takes us to two reflections:

1 - How good was Mark Williams! People sleep on him sometimes because he's “only” got three world titles compared to Hendry's 7, O'Sullivan and Davis' 6 and John Higgins' 4, but he's not only one of the three players to have ever won the three triple crown events in the same season, but also he did that in 2002/2003, what's even more impressive about it. He had all the greats of the sport's history competing with him, all at the top of their games. It's like playing on a "legend" difficulty level and win it all. 

2 - Has snooker not evolved? When you think that the 2020 world champion once lost a Masters final to the 1981 world champion, it may feel as the sport's level didn't go up a bit. But didn't it?

Well, certainly a lot of things improved in the game. The amount of long pots taken and the style of up and down safety shots changed a lot. As well as how early players usually split the pack of reds. What I would say though, is that these changes haven't made an impact to the game big enough to "outdate" the old greats. That's the reason Mark Williams was the 2018 World Champion, Ronnie O'Sullivan was the 2020 World Champion and John Higgins made three consecutive world finals from 2017 to 2019 after all this time since they came into the scene. Given that, I strongly believe that Steve Davis, for example, would be a multiple world champion in nowadays' game even if he played exactly the same shots he did in the 80's. And that also raises the matter that the guys who were competing at the very top with Davis in the 80's would be able to compete with the players that are challenging the very best in today's game. For example, I think Alex Higgins would be very capable to take Judd Trump to the distance at the Crucible even though there's a gap of 47 years since Alex Higgins' first world title and Judd Trump's only. You just think that Alex was able to beat Davis at the biggest stage, while Davis proved he was able to beat O'Sullivan by the time the latter was already a great of the game, and yet to this day no one has overcome Ronnie O'Sullivan.

I'm not saying I think Steve Davis would be a six times world champion if he was peaking right now, but I'm sure Ronnie wouldn't have won six either if Davis had been around his all career.

What has certainly evolved though, is the general standard of snooker. If you take the four best players of each decade, I'm sure all of them will give a match to each other. But in terms of depth, the players outside the top 16 these days are way better than the not-top 16 players of the past. Today's greats need to be up for the challenge from round one because even their early round opponents are very good players and I put that down to snooker's globalization. With a much bigger reach and more people involved, you're bound to get more talent in the game.

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