Ken Doherty

Lives Ranelagh, Dublin
Last 5 Seasons44-18-4-2-11
Turned Pro 1990
Ranking Tournament Victories 6 - Welsh Open 1993, 2001; World Championship 1997; Malta Grand Prix 2000; Thailand Masters 2001; Malta Cup 2006
Last season World Snooker Tour prize money£43,100
Highest Tournament Break 145 – Players Championship 2004
The 2009/10 season represented a return to form for Doherty as he surged 14 places up the ranking list to No 30.
The previous season had seen him win just two matches in eight ranking events, but this time he enjoyed a strong level of consistency, winning at least one match in all six tournaments.
His best run came in the first event, the Roewe Shanghai Masters, as he won two qualifying matches then beat Aditya Mehta, Neil Robertson and Barry Hawkins to reach the quarter-finals, before seeing his run ended by Shaun Murphy.
Perhaps most significantly, Doherty earned a return to the Crucible, having missed out on the televised stages of the Betfred.com World Snooker Championship a year earlier. After beating Jimmy White 10-3 and Joe Swail 10-1 in qualifying he said: "I was almost in tears here last year because I didn't know where my game was going. I was confused about how I was playing. I didn't want to throw it in, but I could have been forced off the tour if I'd kept losing matches. I was on the floor with no confidence.
"I think it says a lot about my character that I've turned things around. There's still a long way to go, but I'm getting there. I take a lot of inspiration from what Steve Davis is doing.”
At Sheffield he was handed an intriguing draw against Mark Selby, but Doherty was no match for the Englishman and lost 10-4.
He did get his hands on one piece of silverware, winning event two in the short-lived Pro Challenge Series by beating Martin Gould 6-2 in the final.
In 2007 Doherty approached the Betfred.com World Snooker Championship with a great chance of taking the official world No 1 spot.
But so sharp was his subsequent decline in his results and performances that he dropped out of the top 16 at the end of the following season.
A 10-5 defeat to Liang Wenbo at the Crucible in 2008 confirmed his relegation from the elite for the first time in 16 years.
His last ranking tournament success was the 2006 Malta Cup. Wins over Joe Swail, Stuart Bingham, Stephen Maguire and Graeme Dott put Doherty through to the final at the luxurious Hilton Conference Centre in Portomaso. In a see-saw final, he led John Higgins 5-2 but then lost six frames in succession and looked sure to lose 9-5 until Higgins missed a simple red at a crucial point of the 14th frame. Seizing his chance, Doherty stormed back to 8-8 then snatched a memorable victory with a tremendous break of 63 in the deciding frame.
"This is my most important tournament win since the (1997) World Championship," he said. "I never doubted my ability and that I would win a title again, but I’m not getting any younger and the longer time goes on the harder it gets.”
The crowning glory of his career to date came in 1997 when he ended Stephen Hendry’s five-year unbeaten stint at the Crucible with an 18-12 victory in the final. He became the first player to win the world title at junior, amateur and professional level as well as the only overseas player other than Cliff Thorburn to lift the famous trophy.
He was welcomed home by some 250,000 fans on the streets of Dublin, voted Ireland’s Sports Personality of the Year and given the chance to parade the trophy at Old Trafford, home of his beloved Manchester United.
Doherty was back in the Crucible final the following year but lost 18-12 to Higgins. His third final was in 2003 when he made a remarkable comeback against Paul Hunter in the semis, winning 17-16 from 15-9 down, only to go down 18-16 to Mark Williams.
Doherty is married to Sarah, an Australian psychiatrist, and they have a son called Christian, born in December 2007. His hobbies include visiting art galleries and watching opera.