KEN DOHERTY (Republic of Ireland)

World ranking: 7
Last five seasons: 7-4-3-7-9
Date of birth: 17-09-69
Lives: Ranelagh, Dublin
Turned professional: 1990
Ranking tournament victories: 3
Last season’s prize money: £234,785
Career prize money: £1,963,021
Highest tournament break: 143

Ken Doherty assured himself of a place in snooker’s history books by becoming the first player from the Republic of Ireland to win the Embassy World Championship in 1997.

He kept Stephen Hendry waiting to claim a record seventh title with an against-the-odds 18-12 triumph.

In so doing, he became the first player to win both the world professional and amateur titles, having captured the latter in 1989.

More than 250,000 adoring fans lined the streets of Dublin to give him a hero’s welcome when he brought the trophy back home.

Named Ireland’s Sports Personality of the Year for his achievement, Doherty was hailed as “a fine ambassador and role model for the youth of the country” by the then president Mary Robinson.

The Manchester United fanatic also got to parade the trophy around the ‘Theatre of Dreams’ - Old Trafford - on one of his many trips to watch his footballing idols.

In 1991 - Doherty’s first season as a professional - he came close to ousting six-times world champion Steve Davis in the first round at Sheffield.

Davis won a classic encounter 10-8 and it was three years until Doherty returned to the Crucible.

In the meantime, he captured his first world ranking event, the 1993 Regal Welsh, added the Regal Masters and established himself as one of the game’s leading players.

No first-time champion has ever successfully defended his title at the Crucible but Doherty made a valiant attempt at it in 1998 when he again reached the final.

He closed from 10-5 down to trail John Higgins just 13-11 going into the final session before the Scot pulled away to win 18-12.

He went out in the quarter-finals to Mark Williams in 1999 and lost 13-12 to Anthony Hamilton in the last 16 in 2000.

A member of the Ireland team that reached the final of the Castrol-Honda World Cup in 1996, Doherty has reserved some of his best snooker for the island of Malta.

He won the Malta Grand Prix in 1997 and returned to Valletta in February to claim his third world ranking title - the Rothmans Grand Prix - beating Williams 9-3 in the final.

Beaten finalist in the Benson and Hedges Masters at Wembley for the past two years, Doherty came agonisingly close to making a magical maximum in the 15th frame of the 2000 final against Matthew Stevens, missing the final black off its spot and the chance to drive off with a top-of-the-range Honda sports car worth £80,000.

Typically, Doherty soon shrugged off that disappointment. “My dreams came true in Sheffield in 1997 and hopefully, they came come true again,” he says.