"It was a mixture of embarrassment, anger, frustration, sadness, everything," Stephen Hendry says as he remembers how his dominance of snooker unravelled into, in his mind, a shambling wreck of a game. When the end came, in the quarter-finals of the 2012 world championships, Hendry was so besieged by psychological demons "there was nothing positive left."
Hendry's favourite sportsmen are Tiger Woods, Michael Schumacher, Nick Faldo and AP McCoy and he was once as imperious as they had been. He holds the record for the most world titles, with all seven being won in the 1990s, and he was world No 1 for eight successive seasons. But the great champions feel it most when vulnerability takes over.
“It started about 12 years before the end,” Hendry says of his slow decline. “Of course it’s psychological and, when you strike a cue ball, you’re supposed to accelerate through the ball. But as you tighten up you end up decelerating. By 2012 my game was shot. You’re sitting on your chair watching players leagues below you play shots you can’t. That destroyed me.”
In his new book, which provides graphic insight into this implosion, Hendry accepts that people compare his condition to a golfer’s ‘yips’. He scrunches up his face. “That trivialises it. I hate the word because it’s much more than that.”
It resulted in humiliation for Hendry. He had to qualify for his final world championships by playing at the Institute of Sport in Sheffield instead of his beloved Crucible. “It felt degrading. That’s no disrespect to other players but I had owned the Crucible for a decade with seven wins and two finals.”
Hendry ground his way through qualifying and in the first round against Stuart Bingham at the Crucible he sank a 147 maximum. Hendry had already decided to retire and become an ambassador for 8-ball pool in China. "I got to the Crucible having flown to China and back, with one day there to meet my new employers. Somehow, the 147 came about. It was amazing because, of the 36 shots, only six were played properly. My game had debilitated so far it was mostly shots I wasn't hitting properly. I'd given every shot a pint of blood to get it in the pocket. The outsider was probably saying, 'That's amazing.' Inside, it felt horrible."
He beat John Higgins in the second round but, 3-0 down to Stephen Maguire in the quarters, it was over. "Clearing up in the fourth frame, I knew if I didn't get perfectly on the blue I'd leave myself this pink. So consequently, on the brown, you're thinking about two shots later and 'I can't play it.' I was finished."
He lost 13-2 to Maguire and retired but Hendry had suffered worse moments. "The lowest was losing [to Robert Milkins] in China. It was such an embarrassment. In China they called me the emperor of snooker but I kept losing in the first round. I broke down. It's the only time I've cried from losing. Robert Milkins is a journeyman, someone you should never lose to."
Hendry does not mean to sound cruel towards Milkins – but he is intent on describing, with crushing honesty, how far he fell. "I loved being the best player in the world. There was no pressure staying there. I've heard [current World No1] Mark Selby say: 'It's hard being the target man.' I loved it."
He admired the way in which Woods, at his most swaggering, rarely looked surprised or elated when winning. “I really empathise with that. When you get a trophy why go jumping and crying? Winning’s a great feeling but everything else is an anti-climax. I really had to force a smile because winning was my job.”
In his book, Hendry details the way in which his manager, Ian Doyle, controlled him. Doyle even made Hendry break-up with his girlfriend, Mandy, because he believed the young Scot should be consumed by snooker. Later, when he had finally married Mandy, Hendry horrified Doyle by mixing with other players. But Hendry believes now that losing his Ice-Man image undermined him.
"Without a doubt. In the 90s, I never socialised with other players. That changed. I wanted to spend more time in the players' lounge. I became friendly with Mark Williams. There's no doubt it affected my invincibility. Ronnie O'Sullivan is still the best player in the world on his day now and he doesn't mix with the players. You need that coldness. But I missed out as a teenager and thought: 'I want to enjoy being with people and going out for dinner.' It was to my detriment as a competitive animal."
During his 26-year career Hendry straddled different eras and faced a range of compelling players from Alex Higgins to O'Sullivan. He describes how drink once ran through the game. "Jimmy White and the others would have half a lager while playing. Bill Werbeniuk had to start drinking four hours before a match. He had this condition where he either took beta blockers, which were banned, or alcohol to calm his heart rate. If he had a match at 10 in the morning, he got up at six to start drinking beer. Alex obviously liked to drink. Sometimes we practised and he used the table to hold himself up. But he still played unbelievable snooker."
Higgins was initially kind to Hendry but, "it turned to resentment. He directed it at Steve Davis and then me because Alex believed he made snooker. In a way he was right. But when he wasn't as good as us he couldn't cope."
Hendry was still disappointed when many younger players failed to travel with him to Belfast for Higgins’s funeral in 2010. He feels even deeper affection for White, his boyhood hero, whom he beat in four of his seven world championship final victories.
“He’d get introduced and 95% of the audience would go mental. I’d walk down the stairs to the odd boo. I liked it – being the bad one, the one who’s going to beat him. But you’d never hear a bad word from Jimmy about anybody. Higgins used to be nasty – but if Jimmy said anything it was in jest. And he took losing with such grace.”
He smiles with nostalgia rather than in judgement. "Kenny Dalglish said, 'Show me a good loser and I'll show you a loser.' Jimmy was an amazing loser. I'm sure inside he was devastated but he never showed it. If I'd had lost that final, I would be inconsolable."
Hendry was still a teenager when Davis demolished him in every game of a six-match exhibition. “I hated it, losing to Steve night after night but I would do the same in his position. I’d be willing to kill the young upstart every night.”
Davis didn’t compliment Hendry when the Scot finally beat him – and Hendry shared that mentality. “I’d practised with John Higgins for years and when he became world champion I couldn’t congratulate him. A normal person says, ‘Well done.’ I couldn’t. It didn’t matter if it was my best friend, my brother, I didn’t want anyone else to win. It still hurts me, watching people win at the Crucible. Steve let it go years ago. That’s why he played longer than me. He treated it as a day out. I could never do that.”
Hendry and O’Sullivan have fallen out occasionally but, now, ‘We get on. Mates is probably too strong a word because Ronnie is complex. There are times you’ll be his best friend and times he’ll virtually not say hello to you.”
There is, instead, respect and rivalry. “Ronnie’s the best player I’ve ever seen and people forget I actually played him. I was obviously on my way down and he gave me some hammerings.”
Hendry responds emphatically when asked what would happen if he and O’Sullivan met each other at their very peak. “I believe I would win. If we had a four-session match, where things change, I would back myself every time. I was stronger mentally. But he’s more talented than me, making shots left-handed and sinking a 147 in 4½ minutes. My fastest maximum would be over nine minutes.”
Flying to China 15 times a year, to promote Chinese pool, and working as a UK snooker pundit, Hendry admits that, “compared to the 1990s life now is dull. Back then you were the world’s best player. Nothing could touch you. I’ve not got a bad life now but I have days where I think: ‘What is there to look forward to? What’s the buzz?’”
He takes solace in his belief that, as arguably the greatest snooker player in history, his world championship record of victories remains safe. “I can’t see anyone beating it. O’Sullivan’s got five. He can do it if he keeps playing. But there are four others playing at that level. At his absolute best, Ronnie wins. But he’s getting to that age where he’s not doing it often. He’ll talk all sorts of bullshit, saying he doesn’t care about the record. But deep down he wants to beat me while, of course, I want to hold on to the record.”
Hendry sounds, briefly, like a perennial winner again. But he is too likeable now not to give in to honesty as, considering his involvement in a new senior circuit, he admits his game is still ruined. “I’ve played it a few times and in practice I’m fine because no-one’s watching. But once it starts I’m totally embarrassed by my shots. It’s horrible.”
The 49-year-old former world champion laughs ruefully. He then shakes his head when asked if he will ever free himself of these demons. “There’re probably people out there who think they can cure me but it’s a mental thing. At exhibitions I have a couple of drinks before I play to relax. It works sometimes but that’s not a way out. I have to live with it now.”
(Guardian service)
