The 2009 World Snooker Championship (also referred to as the 2009 Betfred.com World Snooker Championship for the purposes of sponsorship) was a professional ranking snooker tournament that took place between 18 April and 4 May at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, England. This was the first time that the World Snooker Championship had been sponsored by Betfred.
Ronnie O'Sullivan was the defending champion, but he lost in the second round 11–13 against Mark Allen.
John Higgins won his third World title by defeating Shaun Murphy 18–9 in the final. It was Higgins' 20th ranking title.
Debutants at the Crucible were Rory McLeod, Martin Gould, Andrew Higginson, and Ricky Walden. They were all defeated in the first round.
Rory McLeod became the first ever black player at the Crucible.
Only two out of the sixteen seeded players lost their first round matches. Peter Ebdon lost 5–10 against Nigel Bond, while Joe Perry lost 6–10 against Jamie Cope.
Steve Davis qualified for the World Championship for a record 29th time, but lost his first round match 2–10 against Neil Robertson.
In September 2013 Stephen Lee was found guilty of conspiring to lose his first round match 4–10 against Ryan Day, for which as part of other offences Lee received a 12-year ban and was ordered to pay £40,000 in costs.
Hendry won his 1,000th frame at the Crucible during his match against Ding Junhui. In this very frame Hendry compiled a 140 break. In total, at that moment Hendry had played over 1,700 frames at the Crucible, more than any other player. Hendry went on to win the match 13–10 and qualified for the quarter-finals for a record 18th time.
Mark Allen beat defending champion Ronnie O'Sullivan 13–11. Allen made his best appearance at the tournament, ultimately reaching the semi-finals.
Neil Robertson won four frames on the final black during the second session of his match with Ali Carter, and went on to win the match 13–8.
John Higgins beat Jamie Cope 13–12 having trailed 10–12.
Stephen Maguire and Mark King set a new record for the longest frame ever played at the Crucible at 74 minutes 58 seconds, breaking the previous record of 74 minutes 8 seconds set in the 2006 final between Peter Ebdon and Graeme Dott.
The match between Mark Selby and Graeme Dott saw a controversial decision by referee Alan Chamberlain. Dott was going in-off, but stopped the cue ball with his fist before it dropped into the pocket, believing that the in-off was obvious. Chamberlain called a foul and awarded four points to Selby. Convinced that he now had the cue ball in hand, as would be the norm after an in-off, Selby picked up the ball to place it inside the "D". However, Chamberlain then called a foul on him and awarded four points back to Dott. Chamberlain's reasoning was that since the cue ball had never left the bed of the table, Selby should have played the shot from where the cue ball finished. Both players and even members of the audience disputed Chamberlain's decision, but it remained unchanged.
Hendry made the ninth 147 break of his career in the seventh frame of his match against Shaun Murphy. Hendry equalled Ronnie O'Sullivan's record for most 147s and became the second man to score a Crucible 147 more than once, having done it for the first time in 1995.
Neil Robertson beat Stephen Maguire 13–8. He became only the second player from Australia in 27 years (since Eddie Charlton) to play a semi-final at the Crucible.
John Higgins advanced to the semi-finals against Mark Selby by winning his second consecutive match of the tournament in the final frame, again coming from behind before the last frames, this time 11–12. The final frame required two re-racks.
Mark Allen and Neil Robertson both reached the first world championship semi-finals of their careers.
Both semi-finals featured impressive comebacks from the eventual losers. Allen came back from a 3–13 deficit against Higgins to 12–15 before losing the match 13–17. In a similar manner, Robertson brought a 7–14 deficit back to 14–14 in his match against Murphy, but lost the final three frames.
Michaela Tabb made history by becoming the first woman to referee a World Snooker Championship final.
This was the first final contested by two former world champions since 2003, when Mark Williams defeated Ken Doherty 18–16.
After the first session ended all-square at 4–4, John Higgins opened up an 11–5 lead over Shaun Murphy, winning the second session 7–1. After the third session, Higgins led 16–8, having won that session 5–3.
The second frame of the fourth session was Higgins's 1000th frame in the Crucible Theatre.
The fourth and final session lasted only three frames before John Higgins defeated Shaun Murphy 18–9. In doing so, Higgins became only the ninth player to lift the trophy more than twice, and only the sixth player to have won more than two titles in the modern era (Ray Reardon, John Spencer, Steve Davis, Stephen Hendry and Ronnie O'Sullivan being the others).
By winning the title two weeks before his 34th birthday, Higgins became the oldest World Snooker Champion since 36-year-old Dennis Taylor in 1985.
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). The draw for the televised stage of the World Snooker Championship was made on Wednesday, 11 March 2009 at 9.45am GMT on Radio Sheffield.
The preliminary qualifying rounds for the tournament took place on 25 February 2009 at the English Institute of Sport in Sheffield. (World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association members not on The Tour.)
Round 1
Round 2
The qualifying rounds 1–4 for the tournament took place between 26 February and 4 March 2009 at the English Institute of Sport in Sheffield. The final round of qualifying took place between 8 and 10 March 2009 at the same venue.
Round 1
Rounds 2–5
This is complete list of century breaks scored in both the qualifying and the televised stages.
There were 69 century breaks in the qualifying stage of the World Championship:
There were 83 century breaks in the televised stage of the World Championship, a new record beating 2002's and 2007's 68; this record was surpassed in 2015.
