Stephen Hendry sent the Crucible crowd into raptures with a humble brag about his record at the World Snooker Championship. Hendry won seven Crucible titles as a player, and even Ronnie O’Sullivan has dubbed the Scot his hardest-ever opponent.
Post-retirement, Hendry has turned his hand to punditry and makes up part of the BBC team covering the ongoing World Championship. Which is where he was asked how much he remembers about the switch from a two-table to a one-table set-up inside the Crucible. His reply was typically characteristic.
Speaking during the BBC’s coverage of the semi-finals, Seema asked: “Stephen you owned this territory for quite a few years, you won that [trophy] quite a few times as well. Is there any prominent memory of yours of getting to the semi-finals and the one-table set-up here?”
To which Hendry replied: “I don’t know, there was so many,” with the crowd inside the famous Sheffield theatre bursting out into laughter.
Shaun Murphy and John Higgins go head-to-head in one semi-final, with the victor set to play either Wu Yize or Mark Allen in the weekend showpiece. Explaining what it’s like competing at this stage of the tournament, Hendry continued: “The first one is always special.
“To walk down here, you’ve watched it on TV, growing up and playing snooker. To come out here for the first time to this set-up… Wu Yize is going to experience that tonight. That’s something special.
“It’s so exciting because I honestly cannot pick a winner of the four players. You can make a case for all of them winning this, which makes it so fascinating.”
It isn’t the first time Hendry has garnered a laugh from the Crucible crowd this week though, as earlier in the competition he once again dropped a humble brag. BBC host Rishi Persad had asked Hendry about former champion Zhao Xintong’s impressive winning run after his first Crucible title, saying: “Stephen, I was looking at your record after you won the world title in 1990, the following season you won five ranking titles and the Masters.
“Is that an easy thing to do after winning the world title for the first time, to produce that sort of performance the season after?”
The 57-year-old hit back with: “Not if you’re good enough. It’s quite easy.”