Stephen Hendry lifts lid on snooker’s unseen dark arts as he calls out top star’s trick ‘that just catches your eye’
STEPHEN HENDRY has lifted the lid on some of the weird and wonderful ways some of snooker’s greatest stars attempt to put their opponents off.
With seven world titles under to his name, Hendry wasn’t ever easily distracted but he did reveal how one main rival used to try and catch his attention.
Hendry, 56, dominated the snooker scene throughout the 1990s and into the early period of the 2000s.
After sealing his first world championship in 1990 at the age of 21, he went on to win it a further six times.
Nobody has won snooker’s biggest prize more.
Hendry, who retired from the top level of the professional game for the second time early last year, last won the world title in 1999.
That victory saw him defeat Mark Williams for his final success at the Crucible.
The Welsh Potting Machine are good pals away from the snooker table but on it, they were fierce rivals.
They battled several times and there wasn’t much to separate them during their head-to-heads.
They played each other 41 times, with Hendry winning 19 compared to Williams 18, as well as four draws.
Appearing on his Snooker Club podcast with comedian Mark Watson, Hendry revealed Williams’ cheeky trick to try and put his opponents off.
And it seems like during practice, it was something that WORKED on Hendry.
Regular co-hosts Watson and Hendry were joined by England cricket star Chris Woakes.
After a discussion about sledging in cricket – something Hendry claims Williams would be ‘the king’ of if it was prevalent in snooker – Woakes turned the discussion to the mental side of being up at the snooker table.
He asked Hendry: “I always find it interesting, Stephen, you’re trying to take the pot on to the corner pocket and, for example, Ronnie O’Sullivan’s face is right above the pocket, sat down. What do you do there?”
Hendry then revealed several ways his opponents attempted some ‘dark arts’ – and even revealed which sounds from the CROWD he would find off-putting.
He revealed: “When you start as a pro, you always know your opponent is going to be sat there.
“Alex Higgins, I played him a few times. people would constantly tell stories about how he’d be rattling his ice in his bucket, lots of stuff like that.
“When they used to have smoking, you’d move to the shot and you’d see someone would put cigarette to their mouth.
“Just little things, tiny little things out the corner of your eye.
“Going back to Williams, when we used to practice, in my eyeline, he’d just twitch his finger.
“Literally, it’s a centimetre if that, but that’s enough. It just catches your eye.
“It’s like noise as well, if there was constant noise in snooker, it’d be alright.
“But if you hear the slightest noise, it might be someone opening packet of sweets or something, you just hear the slightest thing and it puts you off.”
Stephen Hendry career achievements
Seven-time World Snooker Champion
Youngest-ever winner of World Championship
Six-time Masters Champion
Five-time UK Championship winner
18 Triple Crown tournament wins
36 ranking titles
Nine seasons as World No1
Awarded MBE in 1994
Two-time BBC Scotland Sports Personality of the Year
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