Alan McManus calls time on professional snooker career

McManus, a Crucible semi-finalist as recently as 2016, lost 6-3 to Bai Langning to miss out on a return later this month, and announced that he had played his last match as a professional.

“I made the decision before Christmas for a number of reasons,” said 50-year-old McManus. “This year has been pretty tough and I’m working on TV at tournaments as well. I’ve not been able to play and practise. If this continues then there is no point in me playing. I’m pretty happy with the decision.

“I really love the television work. It is a privileged position to have and it has just been really difficult doing both. I’ve always thought 50 was a good number. It is a young guy’s game and you have to face up to that. I don’t have a problem with that though, it is all fine and well.

“For me it isn’t so much a results game. For me it is the experience and that is what I take from it. Results and beating someone isn’t my thing. I had getting to the semi-finals of the World Championship five years ago and that was pretty cool.

“I’m happy and I’m settled. I’m really content to not play. What I will miss is being 4-4 and deciders. Those are the times that you really find out who you are. That is why when I watch, I don’t look at the table, I look at the guy. Who he is, who he is going to be and who he is going to become in that moment.”

McManus, a three-time World Championship semi-finalist, won the Benson & Hedges Championship in 1990 and went on to secure his career highlight in 1994, winning a final-frame decider against Stephen Hendry to capture the Masters.

That performance was made all the more significant by the fact that Hendry was defending a five-year, 23-match unbeaten run in the event, McManus rallying from 8-7 down to win the final two frames and take the title despite failing to register a single century. It was a mark of the tenacity for which he had become known, his nickname 'Angles' reflecting an ability to get out of seemingly any situation.

Also a World Cup winner with Scotland, he won two ranking titles in a career which ends more than three decades after it began, and will now evolve into a regular position in the commentary box, where he's quickly established himself as one of the most insightful pundits in the sport.