Stuart Bingham

Stuart Bingham

Bingham (right) at the 2015 German Masters
Born	(1976-05-21) 21 May 1976 (age 40) Basildon, Essex, England
Sport country	England
Nickname	Ball-run
Professional	1995–
Highest ranking	2 (May 2015–March 2017)
Current ranking	2 (as of 18 December 2016)
Career winnings	£2,199,581
Highest break	147 (3 times)
Century breaks	330
Tournament wins
Ranking	4
Minor-ranking	4
Non-ranking	7
World Champion	2015

Stuart Bingham (born 21 May 1976) is an English professional snooker player and a former World Snooker Champion.

As an amateur, he won the 1996 IBSF World Snooker Championship, but then spent many seasons as a journeyman professional before improving his form to become a top-ranked player in his thirties. He first entered the top 32 in the world rankings for the 2006/2007 season, and first reached the top 16 during the 2011/2012 season.

Bingham won the first ranking title of his career at the 2011 Australian Goldfields Open and his second ranking title at the 2014 Shanghai Masters. He followed this by winning the World Championship in 2015, which British media said "completed an astonishing transition from journeyman to king of the Crucible". With that, he joined Ken Doherty as the only players to have won world titles at both amateur and professional levels. He claimed a fourth ranking title by winning the 2017 Welsh Open.

Bingham has also been runner-up in three other ranking events, the 2012 Wuxi Classic, the 2013 Welsh Open, and the 2016 World Grand Prix. He has also won the non-ranking 2012 Premier League Snooker and the 2015 Championship League. A prolific break-builder, he has compiled more than 300 century breaks during his career, including three maximum breaks.

In 1999, Bingham reached the quarter-final stage of the Welsh Open, beating the world champion John Higgins along the way, and later in the season caused a major shock by defeating defending champion Stephen Hendry 10–7 in the first round of the 2000 World Championship, ranked a lowly 97 in the world. He also qualified for the tournament in 2002 by beating Nigel Bond. Bingham played Ken Doherty in the first round and almost made the fifth 147 break at the Crucible, but missed the final pink in an attempt that would have been worth £167,000. He went on to lose the match 8–10.