D.O.B. 21 May 1976
Lives Basildon, Essex
Turned Pro 1995
Ranking titles: One - Australian Goldfields Open 2011
World Snooker Tour prize money 2010/11 + 2011/12 seasons (ranking events / PTCs only) £157,293
Highest Tournament Break 147 - UK Tour Event Three 1999, Masters qualifier 2005, Wuxi Classic 2012
Bingham is enjoying the best season of his career in 2012/13. He won two events on the Asian Players Tour Championship series - APTC1 and APTC3. And in November 2012 he won the prestigious Premier League, going undefeated throughout the group phase and beating Judd Trump 7-2 in the final.
After 16 years of trying, Stuart Bingham won his first ranking title at the start of the 2011/12 season, a victory which also pushed him into the top 16 of the world rankings for the first time.
His first taste of major success came a long way from home: 12,000 miles away in fact at the Australian Goldfields Open, which was the first ranking event ever staged Down Under.
Bingham beat Ding Junhui, Tom Ford, Mark Allen and Shaun Murphy to reach the final. It looked as if he would have to settle for second prize when he trailed Mark Williams 8-5 and was trapped in a snooker on the last red, but somehow managed to escape from the snooker, win the frame and hit back to win 9-8.
"The match changed after that and I thought 'this is your chance'," said Bingham. "At 8-8 the crowd's reaction gave me goose pimples and I was shaking. I had made a game of it and the momentum was with me.
"This is without doubt the best week of my life - it's just an unbelievable feeling. I don't care what anyone says. I have this for the rest of my life and no one can take this title away from me."
Victory was particularly sweet for Bingham as he emphatically refuted an accusation from rival Mark Allen that he had "no bottle."
For the rest of the season, Bingham struggled to recapture that form, and he finished it with a 10-4 defeat against Stephen Hendry in the first round of the Betfred.com World Championship.
But he did manage to retain his status among the top bracket of the rankings, finishing at No 16.
Bingham then reached his second full ranking final at the 2012 Wuxi Classic but lost 10-4 to Ricky Walden. However he did have the consolation of making a 147, becoming the only player other than Stephen Hendry and John Higgins to compile a maximum in a ranking event final.
Bingham made a piece of snooker history in 2006 by becoming the first player ever to win the Masters qualifying event in consecutive seasons. Indeed, by beating Mark Selby 6-2 in the final at the World Snooker Academy he became the first player to win the tournament twice.
In 2005/06, Bingham enjoyed a sensational run of 13 consecutive wins in qualifiers, which won him a bet with manager Gary Purkiss and earned him a new BMW X5. Bingham went on to reach the quarter-finals of the UK Championship. "My level has gone up a gear," he said after a 9-3 defeat of Matthew Stevens.
The Basildon cueman has caused a stir at the Crucible on two occasions. In 2000 he scored one of the event's biggest ever first-round shocks, beating defending world champion Stephen Hendry 10-7, before losing 13-9 to Jimmy White.
Two years later he hit the headlines for less happy reasons during a first round match against Ken Doherty when he came within two balls of a maximum 147 and a £167,000 jackpot but missed the final pink. "I suppose the £167,000 wasn't mine to start with, but it's hard to take," he said. "Some bloke came up to me last night and said I had cost him £20 by missing the pink. I said 'how do you think I feel!'"
The closest he has come to the quarter-finals in Sheffield was in 2011 when he lost 13-12 to Ding Junhui after leading 12-9.
Bingham, world amateur champion in 1996, is a talented golfer and plays to a single-figure handicap. He and partner Michelle have a baby boy called Shae, born in 2011.
