The 1996 World Snooker Championship (also referred to as the 1996 Embassy World Snooker Championship for the purposes of sponsorship) was a professional ranking snooker tournament that took place between 20 April–6 May 1996 at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, England.
Stephen Hendry won in the final 18–12 against Peter Ebdon. The tournament was sponsored by cigarette manufacturer Embassy.
In the first round match between Ronnie O'Sullivan and Alain Robidoux, Robidoux accused O'Sullivan of not showing him due respect by playing left-handed for almost a frame, and refused to shake hands with him when the match ended. O'Sullivan reacted to this by claiming that "I'm better with my left hand than he was with his right". O'Sullivan was summoned to a disciplinary hearing in response to Robidoux's formal complaint, where he had to prove that he could play to a high level with his left hand. He played three frames of snooker against former World Championship runner-up Rex Williams, winning all three. The charge of bringing the game into disrepute was subsequently dropped.
O'Sullivan also received a two-year suspended ban, plus a £20,000 fine and another £10,000 to be given to charity, for an alleged assault on an official.
Terry Griffiths won his first round match for the 14th time in a row since 1983. As of 2015, this run of successive first round victories is still a record. In the second round, Griffiths lost 13–8 against Steve Davis, his seventh loss in seven matches against Davis at the Crucible
O'Sullivan's 13–4 victory over Tony Drago in the second round set the record for the fastest best-of-25-frames match in a professional tournament at just 167 minutes and 33 seconds.
The final is the only time in Crucible history that the world champion did not take the final shot of the championship. Needing snookers, Ebdon missed a shot, leaving Hendry a simple pot and decided to concede the match.
The breakdown of prize money for this year is shown below:
Winner: £200,000
Runner-up: £120,000
Semi-final: £60,000
Quarter-final: £30,500
Last 16: £16,000
Last 32: £9,000
Highest break: £17,000
Maximum break: £147,000
Total: £1,200,000
Main draw
Shown below are the results for each round. The numbers in parentheses beside some of the players are their seeding ranks (each championship has 16 seeds and 16 qualifiers).
There were 48 century breaks in the 1996 World Snooker Championship, a new record which would last until 1998. The highest break of the tournament was 144 made by both Peter Ebdon and Tony Drago. This was only the second time since 1980, when Kirk Stevens and Steve Davis both made a 136, that two players had the joint highest break of the championship. Stephen Hendry made 11 century breaks in the tournament, one short of his record of 12 set the previous year.
