Stephen Hendry still an exciting draw for those who remember his time at the top – regardless of success

There was a time when the prospect of speaking to Stephen Hendry after a defeat would reduce even hardened journalists to gibbering wrecks.

Hendry hated losing with an all-consuming passion that is only found in the great winners. He would frequently give monosyllabic answers and scornful looks to the assembled media. Even for a sport associated with long spells of silence, his refusal to speak could make time stand still.

These days he is a changed man. His Cue Tips YouTube channel produces consistently superb content. He is an engaging and brutally honest television pundit. Last week, World Snooker Tour hired him to present their new podcast with comedian Mark Watson. He has even found time to appear on the TV show The Masked Singer, disguised as a dustbin.

All of this is to snooker’s gain. Hendry has become one of the sport’s most entertaining voices. He mixes serious analysis with a sense of fun. He is self-deprecating but still fiercely proud of his achievements. He doesn’t indulge in platitudes and tells it as he sees it.

Many snooker watchers take the same direct approach to Hendry’s return to the tour, which has seen him struggle to rediscover the form of his glory days. If Hendry fans of old find it a difficult watch, how must he feel?

“I used to have a love-hate relationship with my snooker. Now it’s love-hate-hate,” he says.

Hendry was a genuine phenomenon. At the age of 12, he was walking up the high street in Dunfermline with his mother in the build-up to Christmas. Young Stephen had not given thought to what he wanted as a present. As they passed one shop, they saw a half-sized snooker table. His mum suggested it might be fun. Stephen agreed. Within four years he turned professional.

In the meantime he virtually lived on and for the snooker table. Sport is so often a refuge from the challenges of the real world, in Hendry’s case his natural shyness. At the table, he did not have to speak to anyone. He could just immerse himself in an activity that suited his personality.

He devoted himself to improving and soon became the best junior player in Scotland. At 17, he qualified for the televised stage of the World Championship. Willie Thorne narrowly beat him in the first round. Interviewed afterwards, Hendry said he thought he would be world champion in five years. To many, it sounded like the arrogance of youth. Four years later, Hendry became the youngest winner of snooker’s greatest prize, a record he still holds.

He had grown up admiring Jimmy White and played a similar open, attacking game, but off the table his hero was Steve Davis, the relentless all-conquering king of the 1980s. Hendry observed how Davis separated himself from the other players, didn’t mix, didn’t chat. It was all about being the best.

And that is what he became. The 1990s saw Hendry rewrite the record books several times over, an imperious reign in which he changed how modern snooker was played, ushering in an era of attacking play, big breaks and inspiring the next generation.

The GOAT debate is settled. Hendry himself gives the title to Ronnie O’Sullivan. But for sheer domination, no one has come close to what the Scot achieved in this decade: three successive UK Championship titles, the Masters five years running, the World Championship – a snooker mountain unscalable for most – five years running.

In the 1994 UK Championship final, a best of 19, he made seven centuries. He once won five ranking events in a row.

By 1999, three young players had become established as major tournament winners. O’Sullivan was already twice UK champion, John Higgins had replaced Hendry as world No. 1 the previous year by triumphing at the Crucible. Mark Williams had beaten him on a re-spotted black finish to win the 1998 Masters.

But in the last year of the decade, Hendry beat both O’Sullivan and Williams to win his seventh world title, one more than Davis and Ray Reardon, to set a modern day record. “If I never won another match, it won’t bother me,” he said afterwards. Nobody believed that but he was never quite the same again.

The intensity by which he had pursued his goals could not be sustained without serious mental burnout. He started to relax, suddenly becoming friendly with other players, and won only a handful of further titles.

Eventually, Hendry developed a case of the ‘yips’ and his performances plummeted. He still made a 147 break at the 2012 World Championship but retired after a 13-2 quarter-final crushing by Stephen Maguire. He was 43.

He was gainfully employed doing promotional work in China and became a TV pundit, but there was something missing. One day in 2020, he was playing golf with the then WST chairman Barry Hearn, who out of the blue offered him an invitational wildcard to return to the circuit. The ever savvy Hearn told him he would have to decide by the next day.

Memories of the glory days flooded back, of the excitement of walking into arenas being lauded by audiences. Hendry accepted the invite. In fact, this was the time of Covid lockdown events where there were no crowds. Behind closed doors at Milton Keynes felt less appealing but he finally returned to action in March 2021 where he made a century in losing to Matt Selt in the Gibraltar Open.

Hendry several times went out of his way to stress that this was not a comeback in the sense of him suddenly expecting to win titles again. He was testing the water, challenging himself to see what sort of standard he could produce. The problem, though, was that hour upon hour of practising no longer held any appeal. And the reality was that the standard on the tour had significantly risen in the decade he had been away.

Players in the mid rankings were now winning tournaments. The heavy scoring pioneered by Hendry was evident even in early qualifying rounds.

He saw this close up. At the 2021 English Open, Chris Wakelin made breaks of 135, 141 and 85 to beat him 4-0. A few weeks later at the UK Championship, Thepchaiya Un Nooh fired in five centuries to hammer him 6-1.

Hendry has played only a handful of times since to little success. Every now and again he looks good – he made a century in World Championship qualifying earlier this year – but then he will miss one out of nowhere and you can see him becoming despondent.

So why is he carrying on? Why bother? The answer can be found in his book, Me and the Table, which is a cut above the usual autobiography fare:

“I am still happiest when it’s just me and the table; just me on my own, potting balls and making breaks. It’s where I’m most comfortable. In some way, shape or form, I’ll always have a cue in my hand. It’s what I was born to do.”

In his battles with White, Hendry was cast as the villain, cruelly denying the people’s favourite the world crown, but in fact his performances were heroic examples of sporting excellence.

Regardless of how his form is now, to see his name in the draw for a tournament still adds a frisson of excitement for those who remember that era.

Those who don’t would do well to listen on the various platforms to what he has to say about snooker. They can all learn a lot from Stephen Hendry.