Snooker legend Stephen Hendry has voiced his regret over some of his post-match interviews during his career, including one which he had to apologise to another player for
Stephen Hendry once had to apologise to a rival snooker player for making “out of order” and “disparaging” comments.
Hendry’s legendary snooker career was filled with prickly post-match interviews, which he openly admits was down to being a sore loser. There were several instances across his 31 years as a professional where he was clearly annoyed while talking in front of the camera following defeats. Now, the Scot has opened up about his behaviour in one specific interview, which he bitterly regrets.
After suffering a staggering 9-0 defeat at the hands of compatriot Marcus Campbell at the 1998 UK Championship, Hendry went for the jugular when asked about his loss to the Dumbarton Destroyer. He recalled on the Snooker Club podcast: “If you lose a match then you’re basically straight into a press room and you don’t get a chance to sort of cool down or calm down.
“I’ve done two or three interviews after I’ve lost where I’ve basically just answered every question in one word. Yes or no. I was such a bad loser. Going back to my 9-0 hammering from Marcus Campbell, I did a press conference after it. They asked about my opponent and if he was good.
“I said I was terrible, he was all right but he’s not going to win the tournament. I was very disparaging about him and I went to apologise to him at the next tournament because I was out of order.”
He also confessed he was in the wrong for treating journalists so poorly when they were merely doing their jobs. Now that he has become a pundit himself for the BBC and ITV, Hendry has made no secret of his discomfort in interviewing losers after snooker matches.
Hendry admitted: “I was asked to do two loser interviews at the Masters, which I’ve never done before. It was horrific. I didn’t know what to say or what to ask. I’ve never been in that mentality, I know how I’ve felt having lost a match and I kept wondering what to say.
“The first one I did was Chris Wakelin lost. I’ve got a microphone and I forgot to put the microphone to him when he was speaking, so I had to start again. I remember thinking, ‘oh my God, he must think who is this guy?’
“If I was Chris Wakelin I’d have thought, ‘sod this, I’m off, you don’t even know how to interview someone’. I found that really weird doing a loser interview. Hopefully, I did it badly enough they won’t ask me to do it again.”
Even with his own reputation for handling losses poorly, Hendry didn’t hold back from dubbing current world champion Kyren Wilson a “bad loser” in February. But he went on to explain that it’s actually the sign of a true competitor, saying: “I don’t like seeing good losers.
“There’s a saying, ‘if you show me a good loser, you’re a loser’. I think in sport there’s a lot to that. I don’t mind the fact he’s a bad loser. I think that’s the only way to be.”
Wilson ruffled feathers when he had a cheeky dig at his rival Shaun Murphy, branding him an “old man” after losing in the Masters final. He then claimed The Magician needed the win more than he did.
Despite his heartbreak, Wilson also claimed he had shown “why I’m the world champion” by staging a comeback, which ultimately fell short in the 10-7 defeat, drawing criticism across the snooker community.