World Snooker Championship Betting / Paul Krishnamurty / 01 May 2008 /

Snooker's greatest ever player has surprised us all by making the semis - but can he go on to win it? Paul Krishnamurty on the unexpected comeback of Stephen Hendry

Sometimes you just have to hold your hands up and admit being wrong.

Like pretty much every snooker fan I spoke to before and through the early stages of this tournament, I estimated Stephen Hendry's chances of an eighth world title as somewhere between hopeless and non-existant. Three victories on, Hendry has reached his twelve world semi and the odds on that unprecedented achievement have reduced dramatically. Matched as high as [180.0] when facing defeat to Mark Allen in the opening round, Hendry is now just [6.4] to become the oldest ever Crucible champion.

Credit where credit is due - Hendry has played his best snooker of the season and deserves his place in the semis. He has cued well in all three games, and even though widely accepted to be a shadow of his former self, the Scotsman retains the fluency and attacking mindset when in the balls that previously conquered the world. And whatever he does in the rest of his career, he remains unrivalled for the title of best player ever to pick up a snooker cue.

Hendry needed to call on all those years of Crucible experience to survive his opening match against Mark Allen. He was being outplayed, and outpotted but managed to produce several nerveless, pivotal clearances to edge out his young opponent. Spurred on by that miraculous recovery, the Scot maintained that improvement to upset the odds with a resouding win over Ding Junhui. The Chinese player helped to bring about his own downfall with some characteristically naive play, but Hendry did score well with eight 50+ breaks.

I was much less convinced by his quarter-final victory over Ryan Day. This was a low-standard affair, with the Welshman never at the races. Both players needed several chances per frame, and if Day could have retained his previous form the 13-7 scoreline could have just as easily been the other way around. Nevertheless, these efforts represent a massive improvement on Hendry's Crucible form since he last made the final six years ago. Ding and Day are the only top-16 players he's beaten at Sheffield since then.

The difference this year, in my view, has been his attitude. He's never been the most animated figure around the snooker table, but in the last couple of years he's just looked bored and liable to lose focus at any time. Crucially against both Allen and Day, during the spells where he was struggling, Hendry managed to dig in and get the best scoreline out of the session. The importance of this cannot be overstated in these longer matches, and the wise old boy knows it.

But despite this creditable progress to what is only his second semi-final of the season, this is not a return to the form of old. Even for those victories he has rarely won frames in a single visit. Rather all of his opponents offered Hendry an endless stream of chances and he duly capitalised. You can't do more than that, but I doubt he'll get away with such profligacy from here on, especially against O'Sullivan in the next round.

Ever the realist, Hendry admitted in this afternoon's post-match interview he would need to improve and score heavier to win the title. But, crucially, he did add that he 'knew how to win at Sheffield'. Experience of the latter stages of a world championship could be a priceless asset, especially as either of his potential opponents in the final will never have played in a comparable situation before. Above all else, it is this factor that means the dream is still alive.

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