1995 Masters (snooker)

Benson & Hedges Masters

Tournament information
Dates	5–12 February 1995
Venue	Wembley Conference Centre
City	London
Country	England
Organisation(s)	WPBSA
Format	Non-ranking event
Winner's share	£120,000
Highest break	141
Final
Champion	Ronnie O'Sullivan
Runner-up	John Higgins
Score	9–3
← 1994 1996 →

The 1995 Benson & Hedges Masters was a professional non-ranking snooker tournament that took place between 5 and 12 February 1995 at the Wembley Conference Centre in London, England.

The wild-card players were John Higgins, who had won the 1994 Grand Prix, and Mark Williams, who won the 1994 Benson & Hedges Championship. Both of them were 19 years old.

Higgins defeated Tony Drago, Darren Morgan, defending champion Alan McManus and Jimmy White, before losing 3–9 against Ronnie O'Sullivan in the final. At the age of 19 years and 69 days O'Sullivan became the youngest Masters champion.^[1] Stephen Hendry meanwhile failed to make the final for the first time in his Masters career, losing to Peter Ebdon 3–5 in the quarter-finals.^[2]

Field

Defending champion Alan McManus was the number 1 seed with World Champion Stephen Hendry seeded 2. Places were allocated to the top 16 players in the world rankings. Players seeded 15 and 16 played in the wild-card round against the winner of the qualifying event, Mark Williams (ranked 58), and John Higgins (ranked 51), who was the wild-card selection. Tony Drago, John Higgins, Joe Swail and Mark Williams were making their debuts in the Masters.

Wild-card round

In the preliminary round the wild-card players played the 15th and 16th seeds:^[3][4][5][6]

Match	Date		Score
WC1	Monday 6 February	Willie Thorne (15)	0–5	Mark Williams
WC2	Sunday 5 February	Tony Drago (16)	3–5	John Higgins

Main draw

^[3][4][5][6]

	Last 16 Best of 9 frames					Quarter-finals Best of 9 frames					Semi-finals Best of 11 frames					Final Best of 17 frames
	1	Alan McManus	5
	13	David Roe	3
						1	Alan McManus	2
							John Higgins	5
	8	Darren Morgan	2
		John Higgins	5
												John Higgins	6
											5	Jimmy White	1
	5	Jimmy White	5
	12	Joe Swail	2
						5	Jimmy White	5
						4	James Wattana	3
	4	James Wattana	5
		Mark Williams	4
																	John Higgins	3
																9	Ronnie O'Sullivan	9
	3	Steve Davis	3
	14	Terry Griffiths	5
						14	Terry Griffiths	2
						9	Ronnie O'Sullivan	5
	6	John Parrott	4
	9	Ronnie O'Sullivan	5
											9	Ronnie O'Sullivan	6
											10	Peter Ebdon	4
	7	Ken Doherty	3
	10	Peter Ebdon	5
						10	Peter Ebdon	5
						2	Stephen Hendry	4
	2	Stephen Hendry	5
	11	Nigel Bond	1

Final

Final: Best of 19 frames. Wembley Conference Centre, London, England, 12 February 1995.[3][5]
John Higgins  Scotland	3–9	Ronnie O'Sullivan (9)  England
Afternoon: 64–52, 50–63, 9–74 (68), 5–67, 36–65 (53), 0–82 (82), 117–4 (73), 0–82 (55) Evening: 7–88, 91–0 (91), 47–84, 19–73 (57[7])
91	Highest break	82
0	Century breaks	0
2	50+ breaks	5

Qualifying

Mark Williams won the qualifying tournament, known as the 1994 Benson & Hedges Championship at the time.^[8]

Century breaks

^[9]

• 141, 112 Stephen Hendry
• 132 Tony Drago
• 131, 129, 103 Peter Ebdon
• 125 Terry Griffiths
• 111, 106, 104 John Higgins
• 104 Darren Morgan
• 104 Alan McManus
• 102 Ronnie O'Sullivan

Tony Drago's century and John Higgins's 106 were scored in the wild-card round.

References