Stephen Hendry
Mark Williams
Stat by stat
Bars are scaled to the leader in this list.
The verdict
Stephen Hendry leads 4 of 4 categories. Our all-time ranking places Stephen Hendry at #2 and Mark Williams at #8.
The case for Stephen Hendry
The most dominant player of snooker's modern peak and the man who redefined how fast a frame should be won. Hendry took the world title in 1990 at 21 years and 106 days, still the youngest champion, and added six more (1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1999), including five in a row from 1992 to 1996 — a run no one else has approached in the Crucible era. He finished with 36 ranking titles, five UK Championships, six Masters and 18 Triple Crown titles, and held the world number one ranking for eight consecutive seasons from 1990 to 1998. He retired in 2012 with 775 career centuries and 11 official maximums, the last of them made at the Crucible in his final World Championship appearance. His contribution was tactical as much as statistical: by attacking long reds that his contemporaries played safe on, he forced the entire tour to raise its scoring rate.
The case for Mark Williams
The purest long potter of the modern game and the owner of its most remarkable second act. Williams won world titles in 2000 and 2003, disappeared from contention for well over a decade, then won again in 2018 at the age of 43 — the longest gap between first and last world title in the sport's history, and a result he had considered so unlikely that he had promised to attend the winner's press conference naked, and did. He has more than 25 ranking titles, two UK Championships (1999, 2002), two Masters (1998, 2003), seven Triple Crown titles and over 600 career centuries. In 2025, at 50, he reached the world final again, becoming the oldest Crucible finalist before losing 18-12 to Zhao Xintong. Left-handed, with an unusually relaxed technique and the best cut-back potting of his generation, he is the third member of the Class of 1992 alongside O'Sullivan and Higgins.