Provisional world ranking: 6

Age: 30

World Championship best: Winner 1997.

Best ranking event performance: Winner of three tournaments: Regal Welsh 1993; Embassy World Championship 1997; Rothmans Malta Grand Prix 2000.

1999/2000 ranking form: British - R5, Grand Prix - QF, UK - R5, China - Qual, Welsh - R3, Malta - Wnr, Thailand - SF, Irish - R1, Scottish - R5.

The Darling of Dublin is the only player in the game to have the distinction of winning both the World Amateur and World Professional titles.

It is surprising that for a player so high in the rankings, that the recent Rothmans Malta Grand Prix was only his third ever ranking title success.

However, Doherty is a player who can never be overlooked. He has reached the later stages of major tournaments on a number of occasions this season and was runner-up to Matthew Stevens at the B&H Masters earlier this year.

Sadly that final will always be remembered as the match where he missed the black off its spot for only the second maximum in Masters history, and not because of 6-0 whitewashes over Ali Carter and Stephen Lee.

Doherty became world champion in 1997 when he beat broke Stephen Hendry's stranglehold on the title. Since then he hasn't lived up to expectations but the Irishman will never hand you a match, you have to win it from him.