After a respectable and heartfelt performance at the World Championship this year, there is now certainly a rising fan base for a certain David Gilbert. His semi-final run, defeating players including Mark Williams and Kyren Wilson propelled his exposure and popularity to new heights. So let’s find out about the current World No. 12.

Born in 1981, Gilbert turned pro in 2002 and was on-off the tour for the next couple years before consistently remaining a pro since 2005. There has been a few occasions where Gilbert has considered giving up on the sport but he has surrounded himself with supportive folk that helped keep him in the game.

He has since been steadily rising up the rankings, previously achieving a best rank of position 19 in the 2016/17 season. Given his lengthy tenure so far, he has only reached the Crucible a total 5 times but was only able to reach the second round in 2012.

He hasn’t had notable successes like some of the players that viewers are more familiar with however, his best performances include being a runner up in the 2015 International Championship, 2018 World Open and the 2019 German Masters. Funnily enough, Gilbert had the highest breaks of these last two performances. And of course, who can forget the memorable semi-final run a few weeks ago?

Accumulating over 240 centuries show that Gilbert knows how to build breaks around the table. This became quite apparent as he strung together the 147th maximum break during the Champions League this year against Stephen Maguire.

Having arguably the best season of his career so far, with 2 ranking finals and reaching the semi-final of WSC, will surely give Gilbert the confidence he needs to win his maiden ranking title, Gilbert should take great confidence into his game knowing he can go toe-to-toe with the best and win. And he will certainly get a tremendous roar of applause when he does win those ranking events.

Fun fact: did you know there was a former snooker player called Dave Gilbert, born 20 years before David Gilbert?