Stephen Hendry

You may have seen the famous clip of Diego Maradona's warm-up routine, from the second leg of Napoli's Uefa Cup semi-final against Bayern Munich in 1989: the ...

There is no one dominating the sport like he did, like Tiger Woods did.” It says something of the class of both men that Hendry was just as effusive about O’Sullivan. “No one does it better,” he said. And Hendry did all this despite never being a darling of the masses, like the Rocket or Whirlwind. We hear a lot of talk about the benefits of home advantage in sport but Hendry usually had the crowd against him – and worse. But the Scot was able to surpass it in 1994, beating White 18-17 in the final despite fracturing an elbow while going to the bathroom in the middle of the night earlier in the tournament. Back then Hendry could pot with the best of them and he was also blessed with a natural immunity to pressure. Perhaps the crucial moment came at 14-9 down as Hendry, with the cue ball in the jaws of the middle pocket, rolled in a brilliant brown. It is not just that Maradona pogos up and down with the ball seemingly glued to his head.