On 26 April 2022, as the quarter-finals of the World Snooker Championships were in full swing, the World Snooker Tour (WST) announced a blockbuster decision to award two specially invited professional wild cards to Ken Dahdi and Stephen Hendry, who have been relegated this season. WST said on its official website that Dahdi and Hendry are outstanding representatives of the sport of snooker and have made significant contributions over the years to the development of the sport around the world, and we have decided to offer the Invitation Wild Card of Dahdi and Hendry for the next two seasons.
Screenshot of the WST official website
Ken Dahdi, a snooker sports star of the 90s, is now 52 years old, has 6 ranking titles, reached three World Championship finals, and defeated Hendry to win the world championship in 1997. But after the time into the 21st century, Dahdi's competitiveness deteriorated, and his career had to be relegated, but Dahdi did not announce his retirement, but continued to continue his career for snooker development, and in the 2020/21 season, Dahdi won a WST special invitation card to return to his profession, but did not play any good results in two years, until the end of this season, the world ranking was fixed at 85th, relegated again! This time he regained his professional qualification and will continue his career.
Stephen Hendry is one of the greatest players of modern snooker, now 53 years old, sitting on major snooker records until the last two years were broken by O'Sullivan one by one, but his seven world championships and eight years of world number one record has never been broken or tied, Hendry announced his retirement after the 2012 World Championships, but announced his comeback in the 2020/21 season, also through WST's special wild card to return to the profession, declaring that he will fight again for the return to Crucible! But Hendry won just two games against the pros in two seasons, dropped the game many times, and dropped to 111th in the world rankings at the end of the season, suffering relegation for the first time in his career! Next season, Hendry will once again attack Crucible as a professional player, and I wonder if Hendry's enthusiasm for playing will increase as a result, as a fan, I sincerely hope to see Hendry return to Crucible.