Stephen Hendry has revealed his favourite World Snooker Championship victory while speaking to new Masters winner Shaun Murphy.
Murphy recently triumphed at Alexandra Palace, securing a 10-7 win over Kyren Wilson to claim his first Masters title since 2015. On his journey to the final, ‘The Magician’ defeated Gary Wilson, Neil Robertson and Mark Allen, achieving a maximum break in the semi-final.
Hendry has six Masters titles under his belt, too, and has discussed the familiar feeling of winning with Murphy on his Cue Tips YouTube channel – where he also named his favourite victory out of them all.
Despite becoming the youngest-ever champion at 21 in 1990 and winning six more world championships by 1999, Hendry’s most cherished victory was somewhat unexpected.
“The one where I beat Jimmy [White] a session early,” Hendry admitted to Murphy. “I’d won every match quite convincingly and I look back on that because it just gives me pleasure with the way I played. I dominated every match, pretty much.”
He added: “The other ones are obviously probably more exciting–final frames and things like that in the first and the seventh – but I kind of look at performance more than the atmosphere.”
Hendry has beaten White on four occasions in the final, but his 18-5 victory in 1993 stands out the most for the veteran snooker star. Hendry also claimed the world championship in 1996 after beating Peter Ebdon, who currently mentors snooker player Shaun Murphy.
The recent Masters tournament saw a significant shake-up when defending champion Ronnie O’Sullivan pulled out due to medical reasons. Initially backing O’Sullivan for another win, Hendry acknowledged his incorrect predictions on the Snooker Club podcast.
He said: “Once again, I have been proven wrong. I keep on making my predictions. I predicted Ronnie would win either Saudi or the Masters.
“He lost the second round at Saudi and did not turn up for the Masters and I said, ‘Shaun would struggle to win while he is a pundit.’ So, yeah, I’m pretty good at this sort of thing.”
Yet he quickly praised Murphy’s performance at Ally Pally as Hendry added: “All joking aside, it was a wonderful, dominant performance all week from Shaun Murphy. He just had something in his eyes and it all came together for him. He was a different player last week. I think working with Peter Ebdon has definitely focused him.
“He was completely focused. Whenever he was in his chair, he did not take his eyes off the table. It was all serious. A lot of the time he looks around and his mind wanders a bit, you can physically see his body language change and he is too relaxed. But he was on it all week, very impressive.”