The year 1989 was historic for several reasons. The first episode of The Simpsons had aired, the Gameboy was released and the little thing we like to call the World Wide Web made its presence. However, the 1989 World Snooker Championship is what will catch the attention of readers as Steve Davis would once again reach the summit, for what would be his final time. And boy did he do it in emphatic fashion.
Davis was a five-time champion at this point, with victories at his previous two ventures in 1987-88. In addition to this, he had won five tournaments throughout the season (not including WSC) so things were looking on the up for the defending champion. The battle of the Steve’s commenced in the first two rounds as Steve Newbury and Steve Duggan tried to overthrow Davis but were unable to do so, losing 10-5 and 13-3. Davis then replicated this score line in the quarter-finals against Mike Hallett, one point at which he was 11-1 ahead. This would set up a highly anticipated semi-final against a 20 year old Stephen Hendry.
Hendry perhaps had the more challenging route to the semi-finals, with victories over Willie Thorne, Terry Griffiths and a near loss in the opening round against Gary Wilkinson which reached a decider. However, the Masters Champion and UK finalist perhaps has the mental edge against Davis with the recent head-to-head favouring the former. Having said that, Davis maintained the lead and the advantage throughout their contest and despite Hendry’s efforts to narrow the gap, Davis ultimately proved too strong that year.
Prior to his success in 1991, John Parrott had a bite of the cherry as he reached his first WSC final in 1989. Needless to say, it did not go the way that he was hoping…and then some. Parrott was only able to win frames 3, 7 and 14 in a match that was supposed to span four sessions. It was a performance so clinical that it could be considered the best Davis had ever played in his career. It was an 18-3 score line which still, to this day, is the biggest winning margin of a World Championship final in the modern era. This maybe even extends to all time if someone is willing to go through all the WSC finals and verify the scores before the dead frames were played in the pre-modern era.
To provide some more perspective, Davis only dropped 23 frames throughout the whole tournament. Out of a possible 137 frames, Davis only lost 23 (or 17%). However, if you factor in the frames that Davis actually played, which was 93, across the entire event Davis lost approximately 1-in-4 frames. It was such a dominant performance that prompted well-deserved praise from his peers which made it impossible to predict that Davis would never lift the world title once again.
This post isn’t to highlight the shift in power of the years that followed, but rather the closing of the chapter in which Davis had governed snooker during the 1980s. Not only that, but he did so in such a resounding manner where no one really posed a threat to him. The display that Davis put on was a prime example of snooker at its finest by one of the best to ever play the game.
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