Steve Davis (born 22 August 1957) is an English retired professional snooker player who is currently a commentator, DJ, electronic musician and author. He first turned professional in 1978 and dominated the sport in the 1980s, when he reached eight World Snooker Championship finals in nine years, won six world titles and held the world number one ranking for seven consecutive seasons. He also won the UK Championship six times and the Masters three times for a total of 15 Triple Crown titles, placing him third all time. He won a total of 28 ranking titles during his career, placing him fifth on the all-time list. He is the only snooker player to have won the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Award, which he received in 1988. He was made an MBE in the 1988 Birthday Honours and elevated to OBE in the 2000 New Year Honours.
Davis became widely known for his role in one of snooker's most famous matches, the 1985 World Championship final. Then the defending champion, he led Dennis Taylor 9–1 in the best-of-35-frame final, but Taylor recovered to tie the scores at 11–11, 15–15 and 17–17. The 68-minute deciding frame ended in a dramatic battle on the last black ball that attracted 18.5 million viewers in the UK, still the largest British television audience for any broadcast after midnight and any broadcast on BBC Two. Taylor potted the black to win the only world title of his career. Davis's terse responses in post-match interviews became the basis for a recurring caricature on the satirical British television show Spitting Image, which gave him the sardonic nickname "Interesting".
Davis was the first player to make an officially recognised maximum break in professional competition, which he achieved at the 1982 Classic, and was also the first to earn £1 million in career prize money. During the 1987–88 season, he became the first player to win all three Triple Crown events in a single season, a feat that only two other players have matched. He won his last major title at the 1997 Masters, aged 39, but continued to compete at a high level and was still a top-16 ranked player at age 50. He made the last of his 30 Crucible appearances in 2010, aged 52, becoming the oldest world quarter-finalist since 1983. He retired at the end of the 2015–16 season, after 38 seasons on the professional tour, but remains active as a commentator and analyst for the BBC's snooker coverage.
Outside snooker, Davis competed in nine-ball pool tournaments, which included representing Europe in the Mosconi Cup eleven consecutive times between 1994 and 2004. A keen chess and poker player, he served as president of the British Chess Federation between 1996 and 2001 and competed in televised poker tournaments. In 2013, he featured as a contestant on I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!, an ITV reality television series. A fan of progressive rock, he has an ongoing career as a radio broadcaster, club DJ and musician; with Kavus Torabi and Michael J. York, he co-founded the electronic music band the Utopia Strong, with which he has recorded several albums. He has authored and co-authored books on snooker, chess, cooking and music, as well as three autobiographies.
Career
Early career (1970–1979)
Davis was born on 22 August 1957 in Plumstead, London, Davis's father Bill, a keen player, introduced him to snooker at the age of 12 and took him to play at his local working men's club. Bill gave Steve an instructional book: How I Play Snooker by the unrelated Joe Davis. He began playing at the Lucania Snooker Club in Romford. The club manager brought his talent to the attention of Barry Hearn (chairman of the Lucania chain of snooker halls) when Davis was 18 and Hearn became his friend and manager. before being accepted with effect from 17 September 1978, becoming the youngest of the professional players. He made his professional television debut on Pot Black, where he played against Fred Davis. He played in his first World Snooker Championship in 1979, having won two qualifying matches, Davis reached the final by defeating White in the first round, Higgins in the second round, Griffiths in the quarter-finals and defending champion Cliff Thorburn in the semi-final. Davis lost to Griffiths in the quarter-finals of the 1982 UK Championship later that year. Davis won all of the frames in the first , and the first of the evening, to lead 8–0 but Taylor recovered to trail 7–9. Taylor levelled the match for the first time at 11–11; after Davis took the lead again, Taylor fought back a second time from 12–15 to level at 15–15 and a third time from 15–17 to 17–17, forcing a deciding frame. With the scores close, Taylor potted the final to leave the . With Davis leading 62–59 in the frame at that point, the player who potted the black ball would win the championship. After several failed attempts to pot it by each player, Taylor potted the ball to win the title. The final was watched by 18.5 million viewers, setting all-time records for BBC Two and for a post-midnight audience on British television. At the 1986 World Championship, Davis defeated White 13–5 in the quarter-finals and Thorburn 16–12 in the semi-finals. Davis won the Irish Masters again, defeating Parrott 9–5 in the final.
Davis won the Classic, defeating Hendry 9–8, and then won the Asian Open by beating Alan McManus 9–3. He won the European Open in 1993 where he completed a 10–4 victory against Hendry in the final. Davis won a seventh Irish Masters event in 1993, where he defeated McManus 9–4. Davis won his eighth (and final) Irish Masters event in 1994 with a deciding frame win over McManus. Davis progressed past the second round for the first time in three years at the 1994 World Snooker Championship, defeating Dene O'Kane, Steve James and Wattana but was defeated by Hendry 9–16 in the semi-final. The following season at the 1995 event, he defeated John Higgins 9–3 in the final. This victory was his last ranking title of his career. The following year, at the 1997 Masters, Davis reached the final, defeating McManus, Ebdon and Doherty. Trailing O'Sullivan 4–8 in the final, Davis won six frames in a row, securing a 10–8 victory. He also reached the second round in the 1998 event, where he defeated Simon Bedford, but lost to Williams 6–13. He also reached the same stage at the 1999 Welsh Open, but lost to Williams. However, at the 1999 World Snooker Championship, he lost in the first round on a deciding frame to Joe Perry. Davis did reach the quarter-finals of the 1999 British Open in 1999–2000, but only won one match at the 2000 World Snooker Championship, defeating Graeme Dott, but losing to Higgins 11–13. After this loss, Davis fell out of the top 16 in the world rankings for the 2000–01 season for the first time since 1980 and would not play in the Masters for the first time since he first qualified. This was the first time Davis would be absent from the event since his debut in 1979. However, Davis was unable to qualify for the 2002 World Snooker Championship, losing 8–10 to Robin Hull in the final round of qualification.
Despite this, his previous results were enough to regain his place in the top 16 for the 2003–2004 season, starting ranked 11th in the world. In the best of 17 frames match, he led 8–5, but lost 8–9. At the 2009 UK Championship, he defeated Michael Judge 9–7 to set up a first-round match against Hendry which he lost 6–9.
Davis participated in the Players Tour Championship in 2010; his best result was at the Paul Hunter Classic, where he reached the quarter-finals before losing 1–4 to Shaun Murphy.
He reached the last 16 of the 2003 WPA World Nine-ball Championship in Cardiff, Wales, where he faced three-time champion Strickland. they included an appearance at the final table of the 2003 Poker Million with Jimmy White, who eventually won. Davis co-authored Steve Davis Plays Chess, a 1995 book. In 2010, Davis played himself on The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret; other television appearances include the Christmas 1981 episode of The Morecambe & Wise Show. Davis co-produced a music book with Kavus Torabi titled Medical Grade Music in 2021.
He participated in the thirteenth series of I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! in 2013, finishing in eighth place. Davis is a fan of French progressive rock band Magma and produced a London concert so he could see them, which led to their re-formation. He branched out into club work in 2015 and has regular slots at London bars and nightclubs.
Legacy
Davis won a record 84 professional titles and was the runner-up in 38 events, with 28 of these as ranking event victories. His modern-era record of six world titles has been broken by both Stephen Hendry and Ronnie O'Sullivan, and his six UK Championship titles has been bettered only by O'Sullivan. Davis compiled 338 competitive centuries during his career.