Former British Open Snooker Champion Silvino Francisco passes away

Francisco was born in Cape Town, South Africa in 1946, and into a fanatical cuesports-playing family.

His father owned two snooker tables, his brother Manuel and his nephew Peter (Manuel’s son) would both be fellow professional players.

Nicknamed 'The Silver Fish', Silvino won multiple South African Amateur Snooker Championships before turning professional for the 1981/82 season.

Playing in his first World Professional Snooker Championship, rookie Francisco won two qualifying matches - 9-0 and 9-1 - to reach the Crucible Theatre and the televised rounds.

In Sheffield, Francisco defeated Dennis Taylor 10-7 and then Dean Reynolds 13-8 before his brilliant run was ended by six-time world champion Ray Reardon 13-8 in the quarter-finals. Reardon went on to make the final where he was memorably pipped by Alex Higgins 18-15.

In total, Francisco played at the Crucible for eight successive years between 1982 to 1989; the latter date would be his final appearance on snooker's grandest stage. His last eight finish on debut was his best result in the sport's blue riband event.

Francisco's greatest snooker moment arrived when he won the 1985 British Open ranking event title and a record-breaking first prize of £50,000 at the Assembly Rooms in Derby in front of the television cameras.

The inaugural edition of the event - which is still played now on the World Snooker Tour - carried the richest winner's purse in professional snooker history at the time.

The South African eliminated Jimmy White, Tony Meo and Alex Higgins en route to the final where he defeated Canada's Kirk Stevens 12-9 to claim the crown and cash. The title match made history being the first world ranking event final to feature two non-British players.

Still to this day (at the time of writing), Francisco is the only player from the continent of Africa to have won a professional snooker world ranking event.

Francisco never made another ranking event final, although he did play in three further ranked semi-finals in total (1984 International Open, 1986 Grand Prix, 1990 Classic).

Winner of the 1986 South African Professional Snooker Championship, Francisco was part of the Rest of the World team (alongside Dene O'Kane and Tony Drago) that nearly won the 1989 World Cup title when they lost 9-8 to England in the final.

Having spent four consecutive seasons within the world's elite top 16 after winning the British Open, Francisco dropped out of that rankings bracket in 1989 and never returned to it.

Starting from the 1991/92 campaign, Francisco's end-of-season ranking continued to drop until he fell off the professional tour in 1997.

Silvino Francisco’s death on December 14th, 2024 has been announced online and on social media by family members.