Snooker: Computer ranks Mark Williams head of the rest
Friday, 14 April 2000 18:08If Mark Williams holds aloft the famous Embassy World Championship trophy on May 1, it will prove conclusively that statistics do not lie. When snooker's facts and figures are fed into a computer to try to identify the game's best player, the names of Stephen Hendry and John Higgins appear in second and third positions only. The man who is certain to start next season as number one, regardless of how he fares at the Crucible, feels he barely deserves the status. Not that Williams, who has a massive 7,950 points to spare over Hendry at the top of his list, lacks faith in his own ability. He merely feels that his performances during the Millennium campaign have fallen short of the standard he sets himself.
Ever since the 25-year-old sprang to prominence by winning the Regal Welsh Open and Grand Prix titles in 1996 he has looked destined for the very pinnacle of the game. And he has undoubtedly been the most consistent player over the last couple of years, increasing his tally of ranking-tournament victories to eight. Yet the Welshman, who lost last year's final in Sheffield to Stephen Hendry, is somewhat taken aback by the speed with which he has risen to the top spot.
