Ken Doherty

Ken Doherty

Doherty at the 2012 Paul Hunter Classic
Born	(1969-09-17) 17 September 1969 (age 54) Ranelagh, County Dublin, Ireland
Sport country	Ireland
Nickname	The Darlin' of Dublin[1] Crafty Ken[2]
Professional	1990–
Highest ranking	2 (2006/07)
Current ranking	108 (as of 16 July 2024)
Maximum breaks	1
Century breaks	358 (as of 3 August 2024)
Tournament wins
Ranking	6
World Champion	1997

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 also served from 2021 to 2024 as inaugural chairman of the WPBSA Players organisation.^[3]

Born and raised 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 enter the top 16 for the first time in the 1993/1994 rankings. He secured his only world title at the 1997 World Snooker Championship, where he ended Stephen Hendry's record 29-match winning streak at the Crucible with an 18–12 victory in the final. The first and only World Champion from the Republic of Ireland, Doherty became the second player from outside the United Kingdom to win the world title in the modern era, following Canada's Cliff Thorburn in 1980. He remains the only player to have won world titles at under-21, amateur, and professional levels.

Doherty has been runner-up at two other World Championships. As defending champion at the 1998 event, he came close to breaking the Crucible curse, but lost the final 12–18 to John Higgins. Facing Mark Williams in the 2003 final, he recovered from 2–10 behind to tie the scores at 11–11, but ultimately lost 16–18. In other Triple Crown events, he has been 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 has won just one of the eight Triple Crown finals he has contested. In the 2000 Masters final, he narrowly missed out on a maximum break 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 most recent ranking title at the 2006 Malta Cup, defeating Higgins 9–8 in the final, which helped him achieve his career highest ranking of second in the 2006/2007 rankings. After 15 consecutive seasons ranked within the top 16, he fell to 18th place in the 2008/2009 rankings and 44th place in the 2009/2010 rankings, after which he has never regained his top-16 standing. Since the end of the 2016–17 season, Doherty has finished outside the top 64 in the world rankings multiple times, but has remained on the professional tour though invitational tour cards, the most recent of which was issued in 2024. He also competes on the World Seniors Tour, where he won the 2018 UK Seniors Championship. He is a two-time runner-up at the World Seniors Championship, having lost the 2020 final 4–5 to Jimmy White (despite having led 4–0) and the 2024 final 2–5 to Figueiredo.