Bond,N

Player Profile

Nigel Bond

Born:	15 November 1965. Darley Dale, Derbyshire, England
Turned Professional:	1989
Highest Break:	140 (2004 Grand Prix qialifying)
Career Centuries	93 (to end of 2008/9 season)
Highest Ranking	5th (1996/97)

Nigel Bond’s name first started to be noticed in the snooker press in the 1985/6 season when he won an amateur event with a first prize of £400. In 1986 he reached the final of the English Amateur championship losing out to Gary Wilkinson. In 1986/7 he won several amateur titles and was runner up in three major pro-ams also reaching the Northern semi-final of the English Amateur. The following season he took three £1000 plus first prizes. He made a 139 total clearance in the Derbyshire League. A new record for that league and qualified for the professional ticket play-offs. There he beat Ian Black to gain his professional card for the 1989/90 season. As a swan song to his amateur career the won the English amateur championship beating Barry Pinches in the final.

In his first event as a professional, The Hong Kong Open, he reached the last 64 but had a first round exit in the next. However in his third event, the BCE International, he went all the way to the semi-final before losing to Stephen Hendry. He also made it to the quarter-finals of the European Open and the lat 16 of the Dubai Classic. All in all a very satisfactory debut season giving him a ranking of 39th. He followed this success by reaching the final of the 1990 Grand Prix final only to lose 10-5 to Hendry again. He reached the quarter-final of both the UK Championship and the Irish Masters and was up to 21st in the rankings after just two seasons.

In 1992/92 he reached four ranking semi-finals, the Grand Prix, Mercantile Credit Classic, Welsh and Strachan Opens losing to the eventual winner in three of them. He also made his first appearance at the Crucible and leapt up to ninth. He retained that position the following year after four quarter-finals including the world championship. He was becoming one of the hardest players to beat and again reached the Embassy quarter-finals in 1994. In his opening match there that season he achieved possibly the greatest comeback seen at that famous venue. He was 2-9 down to Cliff Thorburn but won eight frames in a row to win 10-9.

In 1994/5 and when he arrived in Sheffield for the world championship having only reached the last eight in two events and lost quite a few opening matches. At the Crucible however, he went all the way to the final to meet Stephen Hendry who had won the previous three in a row and four in all. He could not stop the Scot taking his fifth world title. The score was 18-9. His other mediocre results that season saw his ranking go down to 12th.

That world final seemed to give Nigel new found confidence and after winning a non-ranking event in Pakistan, he reached the final of the next season’s opener, the Thailand Classic. He lost 9-6 to John Parrott but went on to the quarter-finals of the UK championship. In the spring of 1996 he gained his first, and to date only, ranking title when he won the British Open at Plymouth. In the final against John Higgins he won the deciding frame after requiring a snooker. He went on to Sheffield where he again performed well reaching the semi-finals and attained his highest ever ranking of 5th.

1996/7 started well. In October he won the invitation Rothman’s Malta Grand Prix and in November reached the German Open semi-finals. In most of the other ranking events he failed to get beyond the last 16 but his best ever Benson & Hedges Masters result, a semi-final, was followed by another ranking final. This time he lost to Peter Ebdon in the Thailand Open. He began the next season by taking the £60,000 first prize in the Regal Scottish Masters but on the ranking circuit he found victories hard to come by and only managed one quarter final. Problems at home were affecting his game. One of his children had a serious illness and naturally his mind was on this rather than his game. He began to slide right down the rankings, dropping as low as 40th for the 2003/4 season.

Then things began to improve and he started to win a few matches with the result that two years later he was back in the top 32 and in 2006 returned to the Crucible for the first time for five years, winning his opening match, and he has retained that consistency during the past few seasons maintaining a ranking in the twenties.

Although Nigel has regained some of his old form, he is now one of the games over-forties and his time at the top of the games must be limited.

Career Highlights

World Professional Snooker Championship Runner up	1995
British Open champion	1996
Scottish Masters champion	1997
Malta Grand Prix champion	1996
Thailand Classic runner up	1995
Thailand Open runner up	1997
Kings Cup champion	1993
Pakistan Challenge champion	1993
English Amateur champion	1989