1983 Masters (snooker)


The 1983 Benson & Hedges Masters was a professional non-ranking snooker tournament that took place between from Sunday 23 January to Sunday 30 January 1983 at the Wembley Conference Centre in London, England. The event was increased to 16 players and extended from 6 to 8 days. Although there were 16 players they were not the top 16 ranked players that would compete in the following years. BBC Television coverage did not start until 26 January and so only two of the eight first round matches were televised.
Cliff Thorburn of Canada became the first overseas player to win the competition beating Ray Reardon in the final to win the first of his three titles. The first round match between Bill Werbeniuk and Alex Higgins made a record crowd at the Conference Centre of 2,876. The highest break of the tournament was 128 made by Terry Griffiths.

Field

For the first time there were 16 players in the event. Alex Higgins, the World Champion was the number 1 seed with Steve Davis, the defending champion seeded 2. Places were allocated to the leading 8 players in the world rankings. 6 players qualified, John Virgo, Dean Reynolds, Tony Meo and there were 2 wild-card entries, Jimmy White and Terry Griffiths. Joe Johnson, Dean Reynolds and Mark Wildman were making their debuts in the Masters.

Main draw

Final

Century breaks

Total: 4