Expectations for Hendry’s first tour match since his crushing 2012 world quarter-final defeat to Stephen Maguire are not high, with many convinced the strength in depth of today’s tour will leave the game’s most dominant player experiencing little more than embarrassment.
But those who faced Hendry at the Spectrum Arena in what effectively constituted his first main draw appearance on the professional ranking tour can still recall how swiftly he shattered those initial preconceptions with his sheer ability and determination.
In his opening match Hendry faced a 46-year-old Dubliner called Dessie Sheehan, who had hovered around the lower reaches of the world’s top hundred for a number of seasons.
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Ronnie O’Sullivan has hailed Stephen Hendry as snooker’s “game-changer” as the Scottish legend prepares to come out of retirement at the
“He was like our Tiger Woods of snooker, if you like, when he came along. He just changed the way snooker was played and everyone was in awe of what he was doing on the table.
“He was our game-changer, in a way, so it’s nice to get a compliment from the great man himself.”
O’Sullivan was in imperious form as he raced into a 5-0 lead over Lisowski, compiling breaks of 124, 93 and 125 along the way, and although his opponent took the sixth frame, the respite proved temporary.
The Rocket said: “I can play like that, so it’s nice to deliver a performance like that. But I can equally play really awful, so I’ll probably be sitting here tomorrow night saying, ‘What’s happened in 24 hours?’.”