The 1996 World Snooker Championship (also referred to as the 1996 Embassy World Snooker Championship for the purposes of sponsorship) was a professional rankingsnooker tournament that took place between 20 April and 6 May 1996 at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, England.
In the first round, Alain Robidoux accused Ronnie O'Sullivan of showing him disrespect by playing left-handed for most of the eleventh frame of their match, and refused to shake hands with O'Sullivan when the match ended.[1] O'Sullivan's reaction to this was to claim that "I'm better with my left hand than he was with his right."[2]
O'Sullivan received a two-year suspended ban and a £20,000 fine, plus another £10,000 to be donated to charity, for an alleged assault on an official.[3]
Terry Griffiths won his first round match for the 14th time in a row (the first being in 1983),[4] a record that was beaten in 2018 by Ronnie O'Sullivan.[5][6] In the second round, Griffiths lost 8–13 against Steve Davis, his seventh loss in seven matches against Davis at the Crucible.
O'Sullivan's 13–4 victory over Tony Drago in the second round set the record for the fastest best-of-25-frames match in a professional tournament at just 167 minutes and 33 seconds.[7]
The final is the only time in Crucible history that the world champion did not take the last shot of the championship. Needing snookers, Peter Ebdon missed a shot and left Stephen Hendry a simple pot, but decided to concede the match rather than let Hendry continue.
This was Hendry's fifth consecutive title, a record for the modern era.
Legendary BBC commentator Ted Lowe retired after the conclusion of the final.
Prize fund
The breakdown of prize money for this year is shown below:[8][9]
Shown below are the results for each round. The numbers in parentheses beside some of the players are their seeding ranks (each championship has 16 seeds and 16 qualifiers).[8][10][11]
There were 48 century breaks in the 1996 World Snooker Championship, a new record which would last until 1998.[8] The highest break of the tournament was 144 made by both Peter Ebdon and Tony Drago.[13] Stephen Hendry made 11 century breaks in the tournament,[8] one short of his record of 12 set the previous year.[14]
^Turner, Chris. "Various Snooker Records". cajt.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk. Chris Turner's Snooker Archive. Archived from the original on 10 February 2013. Retrieved 22 October 2013.
^Eric, Hayton (2004). The CueSport Book of Professional Snooker: The Complete Record & History. London: Rose Villa Publications. ISBN978-0-9548549-0-4.
