FROM next season, there will be no professional snooker player called Davis for the first time.
For the past 99 years there has been at least one player with that surname at the highest level.
Mark Davis’ removal from the World Snooker Tour will mark the end of a 99-year tradition Credit: Getty
It was started by snooker trailblazer Joe Davis in 1927 Credit: Getty
Yet that incredible lineage has been broken after Mark Davis, 53, lost in the second stage of qualifying over the weekend.
The Sussex star – who first became a pro in 1991 – lost his tour card after slumping to 66th on the World Snooker Tour (WST) ranking, just outside of the top-64 cut-off.
And then he was defeated 10-6 by China’s Gao Yang in the second round of qualifiers in Sheffield.
In May, he had two shots at redemption as he entered Q School, a gruelling and stressful competition for all cueists involved.
The Battler from Hastings, the 2018 English Open runner-up, disappointed in the six-day Q School Event 1 in Leicester, losing 4-3 to Welshman Oliver Briffett-Payne in his first match.
And then there was Event 2, which took place at the Mattioli Arena between May 26-31.
Though he won three matches in a row, dropping just one frame, he ended up being eliminated in round five, defeated 4-0 by Andrew Higginson.
It was a low-quality affair, with Davis scoring a 54 in frame one, and Higginson, 48, hitting breaks of just 63 and 69.
Fred Davis enjoyed an extremely long career in the sport Credit: Rex
Had Davis progressed he would have had one more match to negotiate, against Mark Joyce, before being able to secure his Tour Card for next year.
Higginson was the one celebrating on Sunday morning as he battered Joyce 4-1 to regain his place on the WST.
It means for the 2026-27 snooker term, Davis will be classed as an amateur player for the first time since 1990.
It is a funny quirk that there will be NO Davis involved in the sport for the first season in almost a century.
It all began with Joe Davis, the Godfather of the sport, in 1927 – the year of the first world championship – and he was champion 14 years in a row until 1940.
His record-extending 15th crown in 1946, a 78-67 win over Australian Horace Lindrum, followed a hiatus due to the Second World War.
Joe – who died aged 77 in 1978 – has the same amount of world triumphs as and put together.
Joe’s time at the top overlapped with the emergence of Fred Davis, who was a professional between 1929 and 1993 in a remarkable spell of longevity.
Steve Davis is a former world champion Credit: The Times
Fred, who started out in billiards, won eight snooker crowns between 1948 and 1956 and is one of the greats of the sport.
In 1992, at the age of 78, Fred lost 5-1 to a 16-year-old Ronnie O’Sullivan in qualifying for the Grand Prix.
And Fred’s tenure at the table overlapped with Steve Davis, the six-time world champion, whose last appearance at the Crucible was aged 52 in 2010.
Eze Chidiebere Paul
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