Snooker: Williams claims final Masters title

Mark Williams brought the curtain down on 29 years of Benson and Hedges Masters history tonight by denying Stephen Hendry a seventh Wembley title.

Williams, who claimed his main motivation was picking up big cheques, collected a £210,000 prize along with the gold trophy for his crushing 10–4 success.

It was the biggest winning margin since Ronnie O'Sullivan defeated Hendry's fellow Scot John Higgins 9–3 in 1995.

Williams has now won the UK and Masters crowns in the last two months.

And he now needs the World Championship at Sheffield in May to complete snooker's triple crown.

Williams beat Hendry 10–9 on a re–spotted black in the 1998 Masters final.

And another close match looked likely between two players on top of their game.

However, Hendry, so impressive when he defeated his Welsh stablemate in last month's Welsh Open final, never got going.

He won two of his four frames with century breaks but lost most of the tactical and scrappy frames.

Hendry, who won the first of his six Masters crown in 1989, collected a cheque for £100,000 plus an extra £22,000 for his 144 tournament high break against Ken Doherty in the semi–finals.