Steve Davis is convinced snooker's greatest days lie ahead after the biggest winner of the sport's 1980s boom years drew his playing days to a close.
His manager of 40 years and closest friend Barry Hearn said six-time world champion Davis deserves a knighthood, and labelled him "the finest sporting ambassador this country has ever produced".
Jimmy White paid tribute too on an emotional day for Davis at the Crucible Theatre.
"He's been a fantastic ambassador for the game. I've got all the respect in the world for him" - Jimmy White
After 38 years as a professional, 28 ranking titles, three Masters crowns, 355 century breaks, and 31 years on from that Crucible black-ball final against Dennis Taylor, Davis announced his retirement with immediate effect.
His career had effectively almost ground to a halt, with falling off the main tour meaning there were few playing opportunities.
A 10-4 defeat to Fergal O'Brien in the first of three qualifying rounds for this year's World Championship confirmed to Davis it was time to quit.
Davis' father, Bill, died last month at the age of 89 after a period of failing health.
Davis said: "It came to my mind that perhaps it was the right time to stop.
"And my father wasn't very well. So I entered, for him, this year's World Championship. He was still alive when I entered, then he passed away so I played the match against Fergal. That was the only match I ever played without him."
His voice cracked as he fought to get the words out. There were two great relationships Davis enjoyed in snooker: with his father, who in the early 1970s presented him with namesake Joe Davis' blueprint for the game, How I Play Snooker, and with Hearn, whom he first met 40 years ago.
With dad Bill and manager Hearn by his side, Davis won world titles in 1981, 1983, 1984, 1987, 1988 and 1989.
So long was his career that at one end of it he played against Fred Davis, Joe's brother who was born in 1913, and at the other against current rising star Kyren Wilson, who was not alive for any of Davis' six Crucible wins.
Davis is certain snooker is heading for another boom era.
"I'm really pleased to have been part of the start of it. Everyone says we're lucky to have been a part of a golden period but I think the best years are still to come," he said.
Hearn said, according to several national newspapers: "A knighthood is so far overdue for Steve Davis it is difficult to comprehend, given the level of his contribution to British sport. It would be the very least he deserves."
World Snooker chief Hearn did not hesitate in naming the highlight of their time together: the first world title.
"It's easy to say the 1981 World Championship was the moment that lives with me for the rest of my life," Hearn said,
"I think of it almost every day still now. It was a breakthrough moment for both of us. We were two council house kids. We didn't have anything but we had a dream, we had a belief in each other's ability, with father Bill as an integral part of the team, and the three of us took on the world and won.
"Of all the thousands and thousands of sporting events I've done, and all the great days I've had, nothing gets remotely close to that moment in 1981."
Long-time rival White added: "He's been a fantastic ambassador for the game. I've got all the respect in the world for him."
