JOHN PARROTT (England)

World ranking: 6

Age: 34

World Championship best: Winner (1991)

Best ranking event performance: Winner nine tournaments - European Open 1989, 1990, 1996; Embassy World Championship 1991; Dubai Duty Free Classic 1991, 1992; UK Championship 1991; International Open 1994; Thailand Classic 1995

1998/99 ranking form: Grand Prix - R2, UK - QF, Irish - SF, Welsh - R2, Scottish - R3, Thailand - SF, China - QF, British QF.

John Parrott achieved his greatest ambition when he was crowned Embassy world champion in 1991.

He played near flawless snooker to finish the first session of the final against Jimmy White with a massive 7-0 lead and went on to win 18-11.

White was also his victim in the final of the 1991 UK Championshp, going down 16-13 and he is one of only three players to have completed the World and UK double in the same year.

He was world runner-up to Steve Davis in 1989, suffering an 18-3 defeat in the final, but he exacted his revenge on his way to the title two years later, defeating Davis 16-10 in the semi-finals.

For a man who is at his happiest spending time with his wife Karen and their two children at their home in the Strawberry Fields area of Liverpool, it is surprising that no fewer than six of his nine ranking tournament victories have been recorded overseas.

Parrott has now spent 12 successive seasons among the world's to 16 - with eight of those in the top four - and he ended 1998 by winning the German Masters title in Bingen.

© PA Sporting Life