Snooker: Hendry's seven makes history

AT THE end he smiled and raised an arm in a slightly embarrassed salute. Even when he had completed an ambition that has driven him for most of his adult life Stephen Hendry held his emotions in check. You would expect nothing less.

For the past decade the Scot's ice-blue eyes have burned out of television sets, focusing ever tighter on eclipsing the man who was his role model. Last night, when he beat Mark Williams 18-11 in the final to win his seventh Embassy World Championship, he achieved it. At last he is ahead of Steve Davis.

The number of tournaments, the quantity of centuries, the mountains of prize-money, were overtaken a long time ago but, until last night's victory, Hendry, Davis and Ray Reardon have been locked together with six world titles. Now Hendry stands alone among the modern champions.

"This was the last real ambition in snooker, to set me apart," Hendry, who won pounds 230,000 said. "I believe I am one of the best players ever and this has proved it to myself. If I don't win another tournament again I will still be happy."

He was not without alarm yesterday because at one point Williams, playing in his first world final, had reduced the arrears in the afternoon to 11-9. But Hendry reacted like a quarry who knows a predator has his scent and raced to away, winning four frames in succession.

By the evening Old Stone Face needed just three frames to confirm his unparalleled greatness and he got there with trademark efficiency. Williams' main piece of defiance was 12 reds and 11 blacks. You had to get that near to perfection to stop Hendry.

"He was too strong for me all match," Williams said. "It was a struggle just to keep there with him. I tried my best but it wasn't good enough."

It was a happy ending to a day for Hendry which was by no means a foregone conclusion when it began. He led 10-6 but you suspect he lingered over missed opportunities before he went to sleep on Sunday night. Four frames was the minimum advantage he should have accrued on a day when Williams was far below the standard he had set earlier.

There were skeletons rattling, too, to disturb his slumbers. Last year he had led Williams 9-6 in the final of the Benson and Hedges Masters and still lost 10-9. Twelve months earlier Williams inflicted Hendry's worst defeat in a final, 9-2, and in January the Welshman was the 9-8 winner when they met to decide the Welsh Open.

Such has been Williams' assurance that he had been in six ranking finals and won the lot. If you get a chance to skewer, flatten or dismantle him you do it or you run the risk of being overwhelmed by a player whose relaxed demeanour around the table gives you the impression he is having a gentle game at the local snooker hall.

That said, there can be no more intimidating sight in snooker than Hendry sizing up a pot and when the man who has dominated the 1990s quickly went 51-0 up in the first frame of the day, the Crucible sat back to watch the clinical accumulation of yet another century.

Instead, with the balls in a position where they would have to be on their knees to be asking more eagerly to be potted, he left a red on the threshold of a corner pocket. Williams, with arch coolness, knocked in an 85 to reduce the arrears to three.

One to the 24-year-old from Cwm, and it was soon two when the next frame of the day followed an almost identical pattern. Hendry had it at its mercy, lost the pot at 32-0 up and then had to suffer the inner rage that only a perfectionist can summon as Williams replied with a 72.

Was Hendry going? It is a question he was asking when he lost 9-0 in the first round of the UK Championship last November and spent hours studying videos and working with his coach, Frank Callan, trying to rediscover his pomp. The answer both yesterday and six months ago was no.

Refreshed by a break, Hendry was magnificent. Breaks of 106, 55, 53 and a decisive 13 earned him four frames in succession and by the time Williams reached the end of the session he had the bearing of a beaten man. The evening merely confirmed the inevitable.

Not for the first time a player learned that getting to the final of the World Championship can leave you mentally exhausted. Williams will know better next time. For Hendry the eighth, ninth and 10th titles will be the spur.

WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP FINAL (The Crucible, Sheffield) Frame scores (Hendry first): 82-47 120-6 51-16 77-60 0-75 101-16 16-73 24-92 77-24 76-15 20- 65 133-4 49-75 30-67 64-22 100-23 51-85 32-72 78-0 29-84 106-10 71-13 75-62 60-48 72-45 71-19 0-89 67-73 88-40.