Stephen Hendry: The Mindset of a Serial Winner – Part Four

04 Dec | BY Betway | MIN READ TIME |

In our exclusive five-part series, one of snooker's - and sport's - greatest ever competitors discusses what it is he loves about being the best

With a record 36 ranking titles – including seven World Championships – Stephen Hendry is snooker’s greatest winner.

In the fourth of our exclusive five-part series – which will run throughout the Betway UK Championship – Hendry discusses his personality suiting the sport, the need for “big balls” and why solo practice would benefit many of today’s players.

The man who was world No. 1 for eight successive years also explains, in an accompanying video, why not all athletes fulfil their potential and whether Ronnie O’Sullivan should have won more World Championships than him.

Becoming a snooker player

SH: It’s quite hard, even for myself, to understand what I achieved.

Before snooker, I didn’t excel in anything, really. I played sports at school, but I didn’t stand out at all.

My father’s father died before I was born – he was supposed to be a very good snooker player.

But within two weeks of getting a small table for Christmas, I’d made a 50 break. I made a century on a full-size table within a year and just improved so quickly.

It’s hard to find a reason why my personality made me become the best in the world. Even now, it’s very hard for me to explain what happened.

I just felt very comfortable.

Whether it was being quite quiet or shy, I don’t know. In snooker it’s just you and the table.

I loved watching the players on the TV and then trying the shots and being able to do it. I loved the fact that I was better than all my mates. It was something they couldn’t do but I could.

It gave me self-confidence and a buzz.

Ability is not enough

SH: All the players are talented, even someone who the fans might say is boring.

Peter Ebdon’s a World champion and, even though it might not look as good as Ronnie O’Sullivan, he’s still got a tremendous amount of natural talent.

So that’s a given. But when you get to the stage where you want to dominate the sport, then you have to have something else.

You have to have big balls, to be able to play your best snooker when the most pressure’s on.

Most sportspeople have psychologists to try to get them to focus and forget everything that’s going on around you and to just play.

Obviously, there’s been people who have been successful with that. But I think to have it in you is very hard to teach.

What I had in the nineties, I don’t think you can teach.

When a hobby becomes a jobSH: Mine was a strange progression.

Between 14 and 16, I basically was mucking about with my mates in the club.

Then a guy called Ian Doyle became my manager, but one of his conditions was I actually had to work at snooker.

This is what I did and it was very hard in the beginning, to go from mucking about to playing snooker all day on my own.

I’d left school six months earlier than I should’ve and I had no qualifications.

I knew then that snooker was what I wanted to do, although I didn’t know what was going to happen.

I used to start at 10 and finish at 6.

That was another thing from mirroring Steve Davis’ career – hours and hours, repetition, repetition. That’s what I did.

And it didn’t take long – from winning the Scottish professional title when I was 16 – for those hours to start paying dividends.

Today’s players…

SH: I don’t think they can practice the same way I did. The schedule has so many tournaments.

Some of the older players have families, so when they have some time off, they don’t want to spend six hours in a club.

I don’t think players practice as much solo as I did.

A lot of the players – and I don’t speak to them all – but going by what I hear, I think quite a lot practice against each other rather than hours and hours on their own.

The solo practice is what benefited me most.