Terry Griffiths

Terrence Martin Griffiths, (born 16 October 1947) is a retired Welsh snooker player and current snooker coach and pundit. He became World Champion in 1979 at the first attempt becoming the second qualifier to win the title, after Alex Higgins in 1972, and was runner-up in 1988. He reached at least the quarter-finals of the World Championship for nine consecutive years from 1984 to 1992. He also won the Masters in 1980 and the UK Championship in 1982, making him one of only eleven players to have completed snooker's Triple Crown. He was known for his slow, cautious, yet elegant style of play.
Early years.
Griffiths was born in Llanelli on 16 October 1947. He gained a place at a grammar school but was expelled for truancy and then became a student at a secondary modern, where he played rugby union with future Welsh national team members Phil Bennett and Derek Quinnell. Griffiths started playing snooker when he was 14. After leaving school, he worked in a coal mine, and he became the youngest winner of the Llanelli and District snooker championship when he was 16. Griffiths won the West Wales snooker championship, and having changed his employment to become a bus conductor, had more time available to practice snooker. He later worked as a postman, and as an insurance salesman.
At the age of 17, he won the West Wales snooker championship. He compiled his first century break when he was 24, the same year that he first entered the Welsh Amateur Championship, finishing as runner up. He played in the amateur home internationals fourteen times, winning twelve of his matches, and after winning the Welsh Amateur Championship in 1975, gained a place at the 1976 World Amateur Snooker Championship where he reached the quarter-finals Griffiths won the English Amateur Championship in 1977 and 1978 before turning professional on 1 June 1978, having been accepted as a member by the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association at its meeting during the 1978 World Snooker Championship. Anticipating his acceptance as a professional, "Snooker Scene" wrote in May 1978 that "his power screws and long potting are second to no one's ... it will not be in the least surprising, if very soon he beomes a serious challenger for Snooker's top professional titles."
Career.
In his first professional match, in the qualifying competition for the 1978 UK Championship, Griffiths lost 8–9 to Rex Williams after leading 8–2. Williams took a 2–1 lead, before Griffiths won the next seven frames, and Williams took the following seven. In the , Griffiths rushed when potting the and went , a shot. Williams later potted the pink to secure victory. After qualifying for the 1979 World Championship, by eliminating Bernard Bennett 9–2 (from 0–2 behind) and Jim Meadowcroft 9–6 (from 6–6), Griffiths defeated second seed Perrie Mans in the first round and Alex Higgins in the quarter-finals. Interviewed after beating Eddie Charlton in a long semi-final, it suddenly occurred to him what he had done, and he said "I'm in the final now, you know!". He eventually beat Dennis Taylor 24–16 in the final, becoming world champion at the first attempt, in only his second tournament as a professional. In the same year he was part of the Welsh team that won the inaugural World Cup of snooker: Ray Reardon, Doug Mountjoy and Griffiths defeated England 14–3 in the final. At the end of 1979, he lost 13–14 to John Virgo in the 1979 UK Championship final.
1980 started well for Griffiths as he won the Masters, beating Alex Higgins 9–5 in front of 2,323 spectators at the Wembley Conference Centre. It was his first appearance at the Masters and turned out to be his only win there. He then won the Irish Masters also at the first attempt, defeating Doug Mountjoy 9–8, but the Crucible curse struck at the World Championship that year, as he lost to Steve Davis in his second round match (which was that year a "first round" for the top eight players, who had byes through to round 2). He and his team-mates retained the World Cup later on in 1980 for Wales, and he again won the Irish Masters in 1981 before losing to eventual winner Steve Davis again in the World Championship.
Griffiths lost 3–16 to Davis in the 1981 UK Championship final in 1981, beginning a six-month period in which he and Davis faced each other in almost every major tournament final. Although Davis had the better of their exchanges, winning three finals, Griffiths triumphed twice, in the Classic in early 1982 and later the Irish Masters (becoming the first player to win three consecutive titles), beating Davis on both occasions (the Classic 9–8 and the Irish Masters 9–5). Unsurprisingly, after Davis was sensationally defeated by Tony Knowles in the first round of the World Championship that year, Griffiths was immediately installed as the bookmakers' favourite for the title. However, a second surprise followed when he lost, also in the first round, to Willie Thorne. At the end of 1982, he won the 1982 UK Championship (which was still a non-ranking event at the time), beating Alex Higgins in a classic 16–15 final.
He never again won a ranking event, although he won several major invitational events: the 1984 Malaysian Masters, where he topped a round robin group (Tony Meo was the runner-up); the 1984 Singapore Masters, where he also topped a round robin group (Davis was the runner-up); the 1985 Hong Kong Masters, where he defeated Davis 4–2; and the 1986 Belgian Classic, where he beat Kirk Stevens 9–7 in the final, in an event featuring eight of the top nine players in that season's world rankings.
Griffiths took the Pot Black title in 1984 and won the Welsh Professional Championship in 1985, 1986 and 1988. He again reached the final of the World Snooker Championship in 1988, defeating Steve Longworth, Willie Thorne, Neal Foulds and Jimmy White, but he lost to old rival Steve Davis 11–18. During the final session of the championship, he accidentally knocked over a globe on the Crucible set, denting part of it with his foot; he was awarded the globe at the end of the match.
By the 1990s, Griffiths had begun to struggle in the rankings, but he still reached the semi-final of the 1992 World Championship, with victories over Bob Chaperon, Neal Foulds and Peter Ebdon before losing to Stephen Hendry. Having lost at the Crucible in 1996 against his old rival Steve Davis (whom he never defeated at the Crucible in seven attempts) in the last 16 (after beating the young Scottish player Jamie Burnett in a final frame decider 10–9 in the first round, having trailed 0–6 and 5–9), he immediately announced his retirement from the game to become the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association's Director of Coaching.
Griffiths retired whilst still inside the top 32 and 23rd in the rankings, despite only entering the 1997 World Championship qualifiers in his final season as a professional. Clive Everton wrote that at the time Griffiths was "the only player to retire when his standard was still in touch with the circuit's top players." Griffiths won his qualifying match to play in the main tournament at the Crucible one last time, where he lost in the first round to fellow countryman and debutant Mark Williams, in another final-frame decider, 9–10. During his professional snooker career, Griffiths played a total of 999 frames at the Crucible.
In their book "Masters of the Baize", Luke Williams and Paul Gadsby speculated that Griffiths may have won more tournaments if he had not adjusted his playing technique to try and challenge Davis.
Coaching career.
Griffiths has coached many top players, including Mark Williams, Marco Fu, Mark Allen, Ali Carter, Joe Perry, Barry Hawkins, Ding Junhui, Stephen Hendry and Stephen Maguire. He has said of his coaching that "it used to be a lot of technical stuff years ago - probably 90% on the technical side. Now it's the other way about, perhaps 80-20% on the mental side. He was the Director of Coaching at the South West Snooker Academy. He also frequently commentates on snooker for the BBC. In 2007, Griffiths was awarded an OBE for "services to snooker". In 2021, Griffiths launched "SQ", a handicapping system for snooker. 
His son Wayne Griffiths is the head snooker coach at the Hong Kong Sports Institute and has coached women's world champion Ng On-yee.