Mark Williams

Mark James Williams (born 21 March 1975) is a Welsh professional snooker player who is a three-time World Champion, winning the title in 2000, 2003 and 2018. He has been ranked the world number one player three times, with his most successful season coming in 2002–03, when he won snooker's Triple Crown, making him only the third player, after Steve Davis and Stephen Hendry, to have won all three events in the same season. He is the first, and to date, the only player to win all three versions of the professional world championship: the World Snooker Championship, the Six-red World Championship and the World Seniors Championship.

Williams became a professional player in 1992. He has won 27 ranking tournaments, including two UK Championships (1999 and 2002), placing him sixth on the all-time list of ranking titles. He has also won the Masters tournament on two occasions (1998 and 2003). His form began to decline after his second World Championship title in 2003; he then dropped out of the top 16 following the 2007–08 season but regained his place for 2009‍–‍10. After winning the 2011 German Masters, he had to wait six years before his next ranking title victory at the 2017 Northern Ireland Open. The 2017–18 season proved to be one of the best of his career, as he won the 2018 German Masters before winning his third world title at the Crucible. At the 2025 World Championship, Williams, aged 50, became the oldest player to reach the final of the tournament. He became the oldest winner of a ranking event at the 2025 Xi'an Grand Prix, when he was aged 50 years and 206 days; this broke a 43-year-old record held by Ray Reardon, who was 50 years and 14 days old when he won the 1982 Professional Players Tournament. Williams also became the first player to win professional titles in his teens, 20s, 30s, 40s, and 50s.