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Mark King

King reached just one ranking event quarter-final during the 2009/10 season. That was at the Sanyuan Foods China Open in Beijing, where he came from 4-2 down to beat James Wattana 5-4, then saw off Tian Pengfei 5-3 before losing 5-1 to Ali Carter.
King had won his first match in the previous four ranking events, but fell at the opening hurdle in the Betfred.com World Snooker Championship as he went down 10-9 in a titanic struggle with snooker legend Steve Davis.
“I never had a crowd so against me, ever,” insisted King after the match. “It's understandable but I let it get to me a couple of times. There was a geezer right in my ear, even if the ball was hanging over the pocket, going 'Shot Steve'.
“I had my chances. I missed a pink in the last frame. I twitched it and my elbow was in the bag before the ball. I'm gutted because I wanted to have a season when I didn't lose any first round matches.
“Not in a million years is Steve an easy draw whether he's 52 or 72. He's a class act. His safety is second to none. The top 16 put together are a mile behind his tactical game.”
King finished the season with a rise of one place in the rankings, to number 15.
Perhaps his most memorable moment of the season came at the Pokerstars.com Masters where he faced Jimmy White; the Whirlwind having been given a wild card to the invitation tournament at Wembley Arena.
A crowd of some 1300 provided a thrilling atmosphere and King entertained the crowd with some funky dancing as he entered the arena to the sound of Ice Cube's 'You Can Do It'. He proved he could do it...with a 6-2 victory over White, though he lost to Stephen Maguire in the next round.
In 2006, King reached the semi-finals of the Grand Prix – progressing from the round robin phase in Aberdeen in bizarre circumstances. He had already booked his flight home as he had assumed that he could not qualify from his group – but did just that thanks to Ali Carter’s 3-2 win over Shaun Murphy.
King went on to beat Stephen Lee and John Higgins but was denied the third ranking final of his career by Jamie Cope.
His first ranking final was the 1997 Welsh Open when he accounted for the likes of Steve Davis and Mark Williams but lost 9-2 to Stephen Hendry.
The second was the 2004 Irish Masters when embarked upon a giant-killing run with wins over Hendry, Jimmy White, Graeme Dott and local favourite Ken Doherty. But Peter Ebdon denied him the silverware with a 10-7 success.
That came just a few months after King had announced his retirement from snooker – a decision he later reversed. "At the time I wanted to snap my cue," he said. "I took a couple of weeks off then had a long chat with my wife and we agreed that I should stick with snooker."
The West Ham fan enjoys playing football and spending time with his wife and three young children Maizie, Freddie and Polly. He loves tattoos and has at least ten on his arms and back.
King’s flirtation with boxing came to an abrupt end when he lost a three-round contest against Quinten Hann in the infamous Pot Whack in London in 2004.

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