Steve Davis, (born 22 August 1957) is an English retired professional snooker player from Plumstead, London. He dominated the sport during the 1980s, when he reached eight World Championship finals in nine years, won six world titles, and held the world number one ranking for seven consecutive seasons. His most memorable match was the 1985 World Championship final against Dennis Taylor, which was decided on the final black and still holds the record for the UK's largest post-midnight television audience, with 18.5 million viewers. Named the BBC's Sports Personality of the Year in 1988, he remains the only snooker player ever to win the award. Davis's career total of 28 ranking events places him fourth on the all-time list, behind Stephen Hendry, Ronnie O'Sullivan, and John Higgins. In addition to his six world titles, he won the Masters three times and the UK Championship six times, for a total of 15 Triple Crown titles, putting him behind only O'Sullivan (19) and Hendry (18). During the 1987–88 season, he became the first player to win all three Triple Crown events in a single season, and remains one of only three players (along with Hendry and Mark Williams) to achieve this. The first player to earn over £1 million in the professional game, he earned a total of £5.5 million in career prize money. His career total of 355 competitive century breaks includes the first officially recognised and first televised maximum break in professional competition, at the Classic in 1982.Although Davis's dominance of snooker ended with the emergence of Hendry in the 1990s, he continued to compete at a high level over the next two decades. He won the Masters in 1997, aged 39, reached the final of the UK Championship in 2005, aged 48, and was still a top-16 player when he turned 50 during the 2007/2008 season. In 2010, aged 52, he made a record 30th (and final) appearance at the Crucible, where he defeated reigning world champion John Higgins to become the oldest world quarter-finalist since Eddie Charlton in 1983. On 17 April 2016, aged 58, Davis announced his retirement from the tour after 38 professional seasons. He remains active as a television analyst and commentator for the BBC's snooker coverage. He was made an MBE in the 1988 Birthday Honours and an OBE in the 2000 New Year Honours.