Games - Steve Davis

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Alternative uses: Steve Davis (trombonist); Steve Davis (footballer); Steve Davis (drummer)

Steve Davis OBE (born August 22, 1957) is an English professional snooker player. He has won more professional titles than any other player. Such was Davis's dominance in the 1980s, it was suggested that he was on television more than the British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Few question Davis' right to be regarded as one of the best players ever: even now, in his late 40s, he still still going strong, retaining his place in the elite world top-16 players almost every year.
Snooker career
After a successful amateur career that saw him win underage titles in snooker and billiards
, Davis turned professional in 1978. He was to win the world championship six times during the 1980s (1981, 1983, 1984, 1987, 1988 and 1989), a record at the time. He also won the game's second most prestigious title, the UK Championship
, a record six times in 1980, 1981, 1984, 1985, 1986 and 1987. Despite not repeating his earlier successes following the rise of Stephen Hendry
in the early 1990s, Davis has remained one of the world's leading and popular players well into the 2000s.

Perhaps his most famous match was the 1985 World Championship final
against Dennis Taylor
. In a nail-biting match that saw a record post-midnight audience on British television and a record audience for BBC2 of 18 million people, Taylor finally defeated Davis 18 frames to 17, winning the final frame on the final ball.

Davis completed the most crushing World Championship victory in the modern era when he defeated John Parrott
18-3 in 1989.

By 2004, he had won a record 73 professional titles, 28 of them in ranking events. In 2005 he enjoyed an up-turn in form, reaching the quarter finals of the World Championship before losing to eventual winner Shaun Murphy
.

He reached his 100th career final by beating Hendry (for the first time in twelve years) 9-6 at the UK Championship in December 2005. In the final he met the rising Chinese star, Ding Junhui
, who is thirty years his junior - equalling the largest-ever disparity in ages between ranking tournament finalists - but lost by ten frames to six.
Outside snooker
Davis became known for his coolness and impeccable conduct in high-pressure situations, earning himself the nickname The Nugget. His featureless expressions and somewhat monotonous interviewing style earned him a reputation as boring. As a result, the satirical television series Spitting Image gave him the ironic nickname Steve 'Interesting' Davis. Davis himself has long played upon this image, particularly as a pundit and commentator for the BBC's snooker coverage and as a guest on television quizzes, with an appealing line in deadpan humour. He is co-author (with Geoff Atkinson) of the humorous book How To Be Really Interesting (1988).

In 1988, Davis was named the BBC Sports Personality of the Year. In the same year he was made an MBE. He was awarded on OBE in 2001. He is currently honorary president of the Snooker Writers' Association.

Davis has taken up his non-snooker interests in the public arena too. In 1983, he hosted The Steve Davis Sports Quiz for Channel 4 and later a soul music show for commercial radio stations, titled Steve Davis' Interesting Soul''. Since 1996 he has presented a similar show on his local radio station, Phoenix FM. He is also a keen chess player and was, for a while, the President of the British Chess Federation.

In 1995 Davis began playing pool professionally and is responsible for the institution of the Mosconi Cup, a multi-day competition between teams from the USA and Europe, inspired by and roughly based on the format of the Ryder Cup. He has also become a proficient poker player, with successful appearances at televised tournaments; one of these included an appearance at the final table together with fellow snooker player Jimmy White, who eventually won.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Steve Davis ]

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