{"id":488,"date":"2022-03-23T10:43:00","date_gmt":"2022-03-23T10:43:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.derniercriweb.solutions\/snooker\/legend\/dennis-taylor\/"},"modified":"2026-05-19T15:08:06","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T14:08:06","slug":"dennis-taylor","status":"publish","type":"legend","link":"https:\/\/www.derniercriweb.co.uk\/snooker\/legend\/dennis-taylor\/","title":{"rendered":"Dennis Taylor"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Dennis Taylor<\/strong>&nbsp;is a Northern Irish retired professional&nbsp;snooker&nbsp;player and current commentator. He is best known for winning the&nbsp;1985 World Snooker Championship, where he defeated the defending champion&nbsp;Steve Davis&nbsp;in a&nbsp;final&nbsp;widely recognised as one of the most famous matches in professional snooker history. Despite losing the first eight frames, Taylor recovered to win 18\u201317 in a dramatic duel on the last&nbsp;<dfn>black ball<\/dfn>. The final&#8217;s conclusion attracted 18.5 million viewers, setting UK viewership records for any post-midnight broadcast and for any broadcast on&nbsp;BBC Two&nbsp;that still stand to this day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Taylor had previously been runner-up at the&nbsp;1979 World Snooker Championship, where he lost the final 16\u201324 to&nbsp;Terry Griffiths. His highest&nbsp;world ranking&nbsp;of his career was in&nbsp;1979\u20131980, when he was second. He won one other ranking title at the&nbsp;1984 Grand Prix, where he defeated&nbsp;Cliff Thorburn&nbsp;10\u20132 in the final, and also won the invitational&nbsp;1987 Masters, defeating&nbsp;Alex Higgins&nbsp;9\u20138 in the final. He made the highest&nbsp;<dfn>break<\/dfn>&nbsp;of his career at the&nbsp;1987 Carling Challenge, a 141.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Beginning in 1983, Taylor wore distinctive glasses designed by&nbsp;Jack Karnehm&nbsp;specifically for playing snooker. Often described as looking upside-down, they gave him a unique look on the circuit. Since retiring from the main professional tour in 2000, he has been a regular commentator on&nbsp;BBC&nbsp;snooker broadcasts. He competed on the&nbsp;World Seniors Tour&nbsp;until he announced the end of his competitive playing career in 2021, aged 72. Outside snooker, he appeared on the third series of&nbsp;<em><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Strictly_Come_Dancing\">Strictly Come Dancing<\/a><\/em>, finishing eighth alongside dance partner&nbsp;Izabela Hannah.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":499,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":true},"categories":[],"class_list":["post-488","legend","type-legend","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.derniercriweb.co.uk\/snooker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/legend\/488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.derniercriweb.co.uk\/snooker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/legend"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.derniercriweb.co.uk\/snooker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/legend"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.derniercriweb.co.uk\/snooker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.derniercriweb.co.uk\/snooker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.derniercriweb.co.uk\/snooker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}