Ireland's Ken Doherty was beaten 18-16 in the final of the World Snooker Championships in Sheffield last night, despite performing remarkable comeback heroics on the final day.
Beginning the day trailing 5-11 against Mark Williams, the number one snooker player in the world, Doherty staged his second extraordinary comeback of this year's championship.
The 33-year-old from Ranelagh, Dublin, won seven of the first eight frames yesterday to recover to 12-12 at the end of the afternoon session. Then it edged to 14-14, before Williams went 16-14 ahead. But back came Doherty to level at 16-16. However, Williams won the next two frames to take the £270,000 winner's cheque.
Massive viewing figures in Ireland and Britain throughout the evening again testified to snooker's spell-binding appeal on television.
On Saturday, Doherty had staged an astonishing semi-final comeback when he defeated Paul Hunter 17-16, despite the Englishman going into the last eight frames 15-9 ahead.
Yesterday, however, Doherty was given little or no chance to claw his way back into the final against an opponent who had swept aside all in front of him in this year's championship.
But the Irishman has been more positive about his chances than in recent years and his mantra "of dreaming, visualising and believing" has converted even the most cynically-minded in Sheffield to the wonders of sports psychology.
Doherty said after the final that he had thought he was "dead and buried" when he fell 10-2 behind. But it had been a "fantastic" match, he added. He received £158,000 for being runner-up.
Both Williams and Doherty are previous world champions.