1997 World Snooker Championship
The 1997 World Snooker Championship (also referred to as the 1997 Embassy World Snooker Championship for the purposes of sponsorship) was a professional ranking snooker tournament that took place between 19 April and 5 May 1997 at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, England. Ken Doherty won his only World title by defeating defending champion Stephen Hendry 18–12 in the final. Doherty also became the first snooker player to win the World Championship at junior, amateur and professional level. The tournament was sponsored by cigarette manufacturer Embassy. Prize fund. The breakdown of prize money for this year  is shown below: Main draw. Shown below are the results for each round. The numbers in parentheses beside some of the players are their seeding ranks (each championship has 16 seeds and 16 qualifiers). Century breaks. There were 39 century breaks in this year's championship. Qualifying. The qualifying matches were held between 2 January and March 1997 at the Newport Centre in Newport, Wales. The last round was played at Telford International Centre, Telford on 24 and 25 March 1997.