The 1979 World Snooker Championship (also known as the 1979 Embassy World Snooker Championship for spoonsorship purposes) was a professional ranking snooker tournament that took place between 16 and 28 April 1979 at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, England.
Terry Griffiths won in the final 24–16 against Dennis Taylor. The tournament was sponsored by cigarette manufacturer Embassy.
Griffiths started the tournament by defeating Bernard Bennett and Jim Meadowcroft in the qualifying rounds. At the Crucible, he defeated Perrie Mans in the first round, followed by a 13–12 victory over Alex Higgins in the quarter-final. In the semi-final, he was trailing 16–17 to Eddie Charlton before winning 19–17 at 1.40am, the latest finish of any match at the time. Griffiths then beat future champion Dennis Taylor 24–16 in the final to win the world title at the first attempt. He became also the first qualifier to win the title at the Crucible.
Future six-times champion Steve Davis and Kirk Stevens made their debuts, but they lost in the last-16 round: 11–13 to Dennis Taylor and 8–13 to Fred Davis respectively.
Aged 65 years and 247 days Fred Davis became the oldest ever player to win a match at the Crucible. Only three days later he also became the oldest player to reach the quarter-finals.
John Williams refereed the final.
The breakdown of prize money for this year is shown below:
Winner: £10,000
Runner-up: £5,000
Third place: £3,000
Fourth place: £2,000
Quarter-final: £1,250
Last 16: £1,000
Highest break: £500
Maximum break: £10,000
Total: £35,500
Main draw
Numbers in (parentheses) indicate seedings.
Sources:
Source:
There were 13 century breaks at the championship, the highest being 142 by Bill Werbeniuk. There was also a £5,000 bonus for compiling a higher break than the championship record of 142.
142 Bill Werbeniuk
125 Cliff Thorburn
121, 120, 107, 101 Terry Griffiths
112, 105 Alex Higgins
112 John Spencer
110, 109 Fred Davis
106 Eddie Charlton
106 Dennis Taylor
