1980 World Snooker Championship 1980 World Snooker Championship The 1980 World Snooker Championship (also known as the 1980 Embassy World Snooker Championship for the purposes of sponsorship) was a professional ranking snooker tournament that took place between 22 April and 5 May 1980 at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, England. Cliff Thorburn won in the final 18–16 against Alex Higgins. The tournament was sponsored by cigarette manufacturer Embassy. The breakdown of prize money for this year is shown below: Numbers in (parentheses) indicate seedings. Source: There were 11 century breaks at the championship. Kirk Stevens and Steve Davis shared the high break prize when
John Higgins (snooker player) two days of practice a week. In the first round of the tournament, he came from 6–8 down to defeat Liang Wenbo 10–9. He then played Stephen Hendry in the second round, the first time the two players had ever met in a World Championship, but Hendry thrashed the defending champion 13–4, with Higgins calling it the worst he had ever played at the Crucible. He finished the season ranked world number five. Higgins started the 2012/2013 season well, winning his 25th ranking title at the Shanghai Masters after coming back from 2–7 down to defeat Judd Trump 10–9 in