Stephen Hendry labels himself as 'greedy' and 'horrible' in his pursuit and desire for sporting excellence

Such unpredictability is a turn on for a lot of fans, but not so much for 36-time ranking event winner Stephen Hendry who prefers seeing a dominant force hoarding the trophies, rather than accolades being shared about.

When it comes to talking about snooker dominance, no-one is better qualified to discuss the subject than Hendry. The undisputed king of the sport in the 1990s, the Scot won all seven of his World Championship titles within the decade, including five-in-a-row between 1992 to 1996. His incredible winning streak of 29 matches at the Crucible Theatre remains untouched, with no-one getting remotely close to reaching that benchmark of supremacy on snooker's grandest stage.

Hendry also holds the records of the most weeks spent as the sport's world number one (471 weeks) and the longest unbroken spell on top of the global standings (418 weeks between April 1990 to May 1998).

At the recent inaugural Crucible Cup - an event away from the official top tier - in Reading, 56-year-old Hendry made a 'one-day' return to competitive action. He lost 6-2 to eventual title winner Neil Robertson in the opening round, but showed glimpses of the class from his glory days, including a break of 100.

During the event, player-turned-pundit and award-winning YouTube content creator Hendry briefly chatted with esteemed sports journalist Nick Metcalfe on Radio Snooker.

Metcalfe asked the 'Golden Bairn' what he thought about this season's roll of honour to which he responded: "I prefer to have a dominant in any sport. I love seeing a dominant force, someone who's like winning four, five, six tournaments a year. I loved it in golf for Woods, Schumacher Formula One, Davis, myself.

"The way the game’s going, so many people are capable of winning and it's like very hard to dominant now”.

Admitting his desire to see sporting excellence, Hendry quipped: "People like me are greedy, and horrible, and just want to win everything".

Hendry on potential Zhao Xintong snooker dominance

Last week, Hendry was on media duties in Saudi Arabia for the Riyadh golden ball 167 event, and shortly after the final was asked by presenter Matt Smith whether world champion Zhao could be the next player to break this current trend and enjoy a sustained spell of success on the pro tour.

Hendry - who named Zhao as the best ball-striker he has ever seen in snooker, and the man to beat at the upcoming UK Championship in York - initially said: “It’s interesting to see who the next person is to sort of take snooker by the scruff of the neck".

On whether that could be Zhao, the five-times UK and six-time Masters winner replied: “It depends on a lot of things. You’ve got to completely dedicate your life to being the best, and winning and winning and winning. And it depends if he’s that kind of person; not everyone can do it.

“It’s quite tough actually, you’ve got to make a lot of sacrifices, whether he can do that or not remains to be seen, but he’s going to win a lot of titles.

“I think this season he’ll probably win, I would think, another couple of times, because he’s got that title now as World Champion. I think he’ll move on from here”.

There is still a decent chance that this streak of unique title winners this season will continue at the first Triple Crown event of the season at the Barbican Centre. Four of the world's top eight have yet to lift a trophy this campaign - Judd Trump, Ronnie O'Sullivan, John Higgins, and Ding Junhui.

World number one Trump's last triumph on the World Snooker Tour was at last year's UK Championship, while seven-time world champion O'Sullivan hasn't collected gold since March 2024.