1996 Masters (snooker)
Template:Short description Template:Use dmy dates Template:Blacklisted-links Template:Infobox individual snooker tournament The 1996 Masters (officially the 1996 Benson & Hedges Masters) was a professional non-ranking snooker tournament that took place between 4 and 11 February 1996 at the Wembley Conference Centre in London, England. The last 16 and quarter-final rounds were extended from 9 to 11 frames while the final was extended from 17 to 19 frames, which has remained the match format ever since.
Stephen Hendry won his sixth Masters title by defeating defending champion Ronnie O'Sullivan 10–5 in the final. Hendry won £125,000 and £10,000 for the highest break of the tournament (144).[1] During his quarter-final match Hendry also set the record of scoring 487 points without reply against Jimmy White.[2]
Field
Defending champion Ronnie O'Sullivan was the number 1 seed with World Champion Stephen Hendry seeded 2. Places were allocated to the top 16 players in the world rankings. Players seeded 15 and 16 played in the wild-card round against the winner of the qualifying event, Matthew Stevens (ranked 236), and Andy Hicks (ranked 17), who was the wild-card selection. Dave Harold, Andy Hicks and Matthew Stevens were making their debuts in the Masters.
Wild-card round
In the preliminary round, the qualifier and wild-card players played the 15th and 16th seeds:[1][3]
| Match | Date | Score | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| WC1 | Sunday 4 February | Template:Flagathlete (15) | 3–5 | Template:Flagathlete |
| WC2 | Monday 5 February | Template:Flagathlete (16) | 2–5 | Template:Flagathlete |
Main draw
[1][3] Script error: No such module "Team bracket".
Final
| Final: Best of 19 frames. Referee: Wembley Conference Centre, London, England, 11 February 1996.[1] | ||
| Stephen Hendry (2) Script error: No such module "flag". |
10–5 | Ronnie O'Sullivan (1) Script error: No such module "flag". |
| Afternoon: 108–0 (71), 12–73 (62), 69–90 (Hendry 54), 78–48 (77), 74–49, 61–17 (50), 71–5, 74–1 (62) Evening: 0–109 (109), 122–0 (87), 126–8 (125), 9–62 (61), 80–1 (80), 0–138 (106), 103–0 (97) | ||
| 125 | Highest break | 109 |
| 1 | Century breaks | 2 |
| 9 | 50+ breaks | 4 |
Qualifying
Matthew Stevens won the qualifying tournament, known as the 1995 Benson & Hedges Championship at the time.[4]
Century breaks
Total: 21[5]
- 144, 134, 127, 125, 121, 105 Template:Ndash Stephen Hendry
- 131, 100 Template:Ndash Alan McManus
- 128, 109, 109, 106 Template:Ndash Ronnie O'Sullivan
- 125, 118, 103, 102 Template:Ndash Andy Hicks
- 117 Template:Ndash John Parrott
- 110 Template:Ndash Nigel Bond
- 104 Template:Ndash Steve Davis
- 101 Template:Ndash John Higgins
- 100 Template:Ndash Dave Harold
Andy Hicks's 125, 103 and 102 were scored in the wild-card round.
References
<templatestyles src="Reflist/styles.css" />
Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
Script error: No such module "Navbox". Template:Snooker season 1995/1996