2001 World Snooker Championship
The 2001 World Snooker Championship was a professional ranking snooker tournament that took place between 21 April and 7 May 2001 at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, England.
Defending champion Mark Williams lost in the second round 12–13 against Joe Swail, and became the latest first-time champion to fall to the Crucible curse, being unable to defend his first World title.
Ronnie O'Sullivan won his first World title by defeating John Higgins 18–14 in the final. The tournament was sponsored by cigarette manufacturer Embassy.Tournament summary
The breakdown of prize money for this year is shown below:
- Winner: £250,000
- Runner-up: £147,000
- Semi-final: £73,000
- Quarter-final: £36,500
- Last 16: £20,000
- Last 32: £14,000
- Last 48: £10,500
- Last 64: £6,600
- Last 96: £4,000
- Last 128: £1,100
- Highest break: £20,000
- Maximum break: £147,000
- Total: £1,532,000
Main draw
Shown below are the results for each round. The numbers in parentheses beside some of the players are their seeding ranks.Qualifying
The qualifying matches were held between 20 February and 4 March 2001 at the Newport Centre in Newport, Wales.Round 1
Round 2–4
Round 5–6
Century breaks
There were 53 century breaks in the Championship. The highest break of the tournament was 140 made by Joe Swail.
- 140, 138, 114, 107 Joe Swail
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- 139, 134, 133, 126, 100, 100 Matthew Stevens
- 139, 133, 119, 114, 108, 108, 106, 100, 100 Ronnie O'Sullivan
- 137 Mark King
- 135, 125, 104 Patrick Wallace
- 130, 108, 100 Paul Hunter
- 129, 106, 100 Stephen Hendry
- 121, 100 Stephen Lee
- 116, 114, 101 Ken Doherty
- 114, 110 Anthony Hamilton
- 110, 101 Peter Ebdon
- 108 Michael Judge
- 102 Nick Dyson
- 101 Chris Small
- 101 Mark Williams