2004 World Snooker Championship

Updated on Nov 05, 2023

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Dates 17 April–3 May 2004 City Sheffield Organisation(s) WPBSA		Venue Crucible Theatre Country England Format Ranking event

The 2004 World Snooker Championship (also referred to as the 2004 Embassy World Snooker Championship for the purposes of sponsorship) was a professional ranking snooker tournament that took place between 17 April and 3 May 2004 at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, England.

Mark Williams was the defending champion, but he lost in the second round 11–13 against Joe Perry.

Ronnie O'Sullivan won his second world title by defeating Graeme Dott 18–8 in the final, despite Dott having led 5–0. This was the fourth biggest margin in a World final, subsequently equalled by O'Sullivan against Ali Carter in 2008. The tournament was sponsored by cigarette manufacturer Embassy.

Tournament summary

Chris Small was forced to retire from his first round match against Alan McManus due to a degenerative spinal disease. His condition would later force him to retire from the game permanently.

Andy Hicks reached the second round by beating Quinten Hann in a match memorable for a near punch-up between the two players at the end, triggered by Hicks pointing out to Hann that he was likely to drop out of the top 16 as a result of the loss.

O'Sullivan's 17–4 against Stephen Hendry was the biggest ever semi-final victory, replacing Hendry's 16–4 win over Terry Griffiths in 1992.

Prize fund

The breakdown of prize money for this year is shown below:

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).