Alan McManus

Name | Date of Birth | Country |
---|---|---|
Alan McManus | 21-01-1971 | Scotland |
Alan McManus (born 21 January 1971) is a Scottish professional snooker player. A mainstay of the world's top 16 during the 1990s and 2000s, he has won two ranking events, the 1994 Dubai Classic and the 1996 Thailand Open, and was a World Championship semi-finalist in 1992, 1993 and 2016. He also won the 1994 Masters, ending Stephen Hendry's five-year, 23-match unbeaten streak at the tournament with a 9–8 victory in the final.
McManus has long been considered a consistently good player, having a record of fourteen consecutive seasons in the Top 16, but never managed to achieve the success of his contemporaries Stephen Hendry, Ken Doherty, Ronnie O'Sullivan and John Higgins. He was ranked in the Top 16 from 1990 to 2006, dropping out after an unsuccessful 2005/2006 season. His highest ranking was sixth (in 1993/94 and 1996/97). He has reached twenty-one professional semi-finals, but won only four events. He has reached the semi-finals of the World Championship three times, but has never appeared in a final. Until 2005, McManus had gone eleven years without reaching the quarter-finals of the tournament, despite consistent achievements in other events.
The highlight of his career to date has been claiming the Masters title at Wembley in 1994, defeating Stephen Hendry 9–8 in the final and thus ending Hendry's unbeaten run in the tournament, which dated back to 1989.
McManus qualified for the 2016 World Championship with comfortable victories over Michael Wasley, David Morris and Jimmy Robertson. In the first round at the Crucible he defeated his fellow-countryman Stephen Maguire 10–7, before overcoming Ali Carter 13–11 in round two. His quarter-final saw him come from 11–9 down against John Higgins to take the final four frames and win 13–11, setting up a first semi-final appearance at the World Championship since 1993. In that semi-final he lost to Ding Junhui 17–11. His end-of-season ranking of 20 was the highest he had been in a decade.