Graeme Dott
Graeme Dott is a Scottish professional snooker player and snooker coach from Larkhall. He turned professional in 1994 and first entered the top 16 in 2001. He has won two ranking titles, the 2006 World Snooker Championship and the 2007 China Open, and was runner-up in the World Championships of 2004 and 2010. He reached number 2 in the world rankings in 2007, but a subsequent episode of clinical depression seriously affected his form, causing him to drop to number 28 for the 2009–10 season. He then recovered his form, regained his top-16 ranking, and reached a third World Championship final. In 2011, he published his autobiography, Frame of Mind: The Autobiography of the World Snooker Champion.
In 2025, Dott was charged with sexually abusing two children. Prosecutors alleged that he abused a girl between 1993 and 1996, beginning when she was around 10 years old, and a boy between 2006 and 2010, beginning when he was around 7 years old. On 9 April, two days before he was scheduled to compete in the 2025 World Snooker Championship qualifying rounds, the WPBSA announced that it had suspended him from competition. Dott has pleaded not guilty to the charges and will stand trial at Scotland's High Court of Justiciary in August 2026. Although released on bail, he remains suspended from competitive snooker pending the outcome.
Career
Early career
After winning the UK Under-19 Championship in 1992 and Scottish Amateur Championship in 1993, Dott turned professional in 1994. He slowly climbed the rankings, reaching the top sixteen in 2001, where he remained until 2009. Early successes included reaching the quarter-final of the 1996 Welsh Open and qualifying for the World Championship for the first time in 1997. Dott was a runner-up in the 1999 Scottish Open, the 2001 British Open, the 2004 World Championship and the 2005 Malta Cup. He scored his first competitive 147 break in the 1999 British Open.2006 World Championship victory
Dott started his campaign with a 10–3 victory over former champion John Parrott, before beating veteran Nigel Bond 13–9 in the second round. In his quarter-final match against Australia's Neil Robertson, Dott took a 12–8 lead, before being pegged back to 12–12, and then edging through the deciding frame to win 13–12. In the semi-finals, he faced then two-time champion Ronnie O'Sullivan in a rematch of their 2004 Championship final. They finished the second session tied 8–8, but Dott swept O'Sullivan in the third session en route to a 17–11 victory.Dott faced Peter Ebdon in the final for the £200,000 prize. He began the last session leading 15–7, but Ebdon won six successive frames to reduce the deficit to two. Dott eventually won 18–14, after winning some vital frames with impressive clearances.
It stands as the longest final ever, and was, at the time, the latest to finish. The previous record holder had been the classic final frame black ball finish 1985 final between Englishman Steve Davis and Northern Irishman Dennis Taylor, which ended at 12:19 a.m.. The Dott–Ebdon match finished half an hour later, despite featuring three fewer frames, reflecting the slow overall pace of the match, so slow that both afternoon sessions only had six frames, rather than the usual eight. Moreover, at over 74 minutes, the 27th frame was the then longest in the history of the World Championship, beating the previous record of 70 minutes set by Canadian Cliff Thorburn and Welshman Doug Mountjoy, a record that would stand until 2009.
The victory over Ebdon took Dott's ranking up to number 6 for the 2006/2007 season, a career high at the time.
Post-title career
Dott reached the semi-finals of the 2006 UK Championship, where he lost 7–9 to Stephen Hendry after an earlier 7–5 lead. Dott briefly became the provisional world number one in the rankings system after overcoming Jamie Cope 9–5 to win the 2007 China Open, his second ranking tournament win. Prior to this, he disliked going to China, not helped by a disastrous match in 2002. However, going into the 2007 World Championship as defending champion, he suffered a shock 7–10 defeat in the first round to Ian McCulloch in the opening match of the tournament, which dented his prospects of remaining world number 1. Newly crowned world champion John Higgins overtook him. The loss against McCulloch also maintained the "Crucible curse", as Dott became the seventeenth consecutive first-time champion to lose his title the very next year.The 2007–08 season was more of a struggle for Dott, who described his late-2007 form as "hopeless... nowhere near to playing a good enough standard". His season started promisingly, as he reached the semi-finals of the season-opening 2007 Shanghai Masters, where he defeated Michael Holt 5–4, tournament favourite Ding Junhui 5–1, and Stephen Lee 5–4, before losing his semi-final against Ryan Day 2–6, to close the gap on world number 1 John Higgins, who went out in the second round; however, Dott then won no further matches that season; a run of twelve consecutive defeats, including all five group matches in the 2007 Grand Prix, started from October 2007 onwards. In the 2007 UK Championship he was eliminated in the first round, 7–9, by unseeded Dave Harold, while in the Masters he lost 5–6 to eventual runner-up Stephen Lee for the third successive year. Another first-round elimination followed in the 2008 Malta Cup, this time to Mark Williams.
In the 2008 Welsh Open Dott lost his opening match against Michael Judge 4–5. In frame 7, when leading 4–2, he missed the pack completely with his break-off after miscuing, and also failed to hit the bunch on his next shot after being snookered. Dott announced that he might miss the 2008 World Championship for personal reasons, and his manager said he had been suffering from depression. However, he did eventually participate in the tournament, but was eliminated in the first round for a consecutive year, losing 7–10 to Joe Perry, dropping him to number 13 in the new world rankings, and finishing the season outside the top 32 in the one-year rankings. In the early part of the 2008–09 season, Dott sustained a broken left arm while playing football which forced him to pull out of the 2008 Shanghai Masters and the 2008 Grand Prix.
Dott won the Berlin leg of the World Series of Snooker, but withdrew from the Moscow event two days before it began, as his wife was preparing to give birth. He reached the second round of the 2009 World Championship for the first time since winning the title in 2006, but lost to Mark Selby 10–13, causing him to drop out of the top 16.
At the 2010 World Championship, Dott produced an unlikely run to his third World final in six years. He had not had much success in the 2009–10 season going into the World Championship, with only one ranking last 16 finish in the 2010 Welsh Open. However, a newly inspired Dott convincingly knocked out Peter Ebdon in the first round 10–5. He then thrashed fellow Scot Stephen Maguire 13–6 in the second round, and for the first time since winning the title in 2006, advanced to the quarter-finals where he recovered from 10 to 12 behind to see off Mark Allen 13–12. In his 17–14 defeat of Mark Selby in the semi-final, he scored the second 146 clearance in the 83-year history of the World Championship. Dott was eventually defeated in the final 13–18 by Neil Robertson, who had never beaten Dott previously. Despite having to settle for runner-up spot, Dott's efforts were ultimately rewarded with a return to the top 16 for 2010/2011.
He returned a year later with a strong campaign at the World Championship, beating Mark King and Ali Carter before losing to in-form Judd Trump in the quarter-finals. He finished the 2010–11 season ranked world number 10.
2011/2012 season
Dott missed the first ranking event of the 2011–12 season, the Australian Goldfields Open due a neck injury, but he took part in the remaining seven ranking tournaments. He was knocked out in the first round in the Shanghai Masters and Welsh Open and did not get past the last 16 of the 2011 UK Championship, German Masters or the China Open. Dott's best run of the season came at the World Open, where he beat Barry Hawkins and Marcus Campbell, before losing 1–5 to Stephen Lee in the quarter-finals. He also reached the quarter-finals of the Masters, where he was defeated by John Higgins 3–6.Dott lost 2–4 to Ben Woollaston in the final of Event 3 of the minor-ranking Players Tour Championship, after earlier having overcome Ronnie O'Sullivan, Stephen Hendry and John Higgins. He also reached three semi-finals after playing in 11 of the 12 events throughout the season. Those results meant that Dott finished 7th on the PTC Order of Merit and therefore qualified to the last 16 of the Finals, where he lost 2–4 to Joe Perry. Dott played in the first ever professional snooker tournament in South America, the non-ranking Brazil Masters, and reached the final only to be whitewashed 0–5 by Shaun Murphy. He also lost in the final of the Snooker Shoot-Out to Barry Hawkins, in a tournament where the winner of each round is decided by a 10-minute frame.
Dott's season came to an unceremonious end when he suffered his heaviest ever World Championship defeat, losing to Joe Perry 1–10. He stated after the match that it was the worst he had played as a professional. Nevertheless, he maintained his place in the elite top 16 at number 13.
2012/2013 season
During the 2012/2013 season, Dott lost in the last 16 of the 2012 UK Championship, the German Masters, the Welsh Open, the World Open, and the China Open. He reached the quarter-finals of the Wuxi Classic, where he lost 0–5 to Mark Davis, and the Shanghai Masters, where he lost 4–5 to Judd Trump.At the 2013 Masters, Dott defeated Stephen Maguire 6–5 and Trump 6–1 to reach the semi-finals. Despite taking a 4–1 lead in his semi-final match, Dott lost 5–6 to eventual tournament winner Mark Selby.
At the World Championship, Dott defeated Peter Ebdon 10–6 in a first-round match that lasted 7 hours 18 minutes, with an extra session added after the players failed to complete the match in the time allotted for the first two sessions. After the match, Dott criticised Ebdon's slow, deliberative style of play and called for a rule to limit the amount of time a player could spend over a shot. Dott became the only Scottish player to reach the second round, after John Higgins, Stephen Maguire, Marcus Campbell, and Alan McManus all suffered first-round defeats. Facing Shaun Murphy in his second-round match, he trailed 2–6 after the first session. During the second session, he complained about receiving static shocks when he touched the table, and the players took their mid-session interval a frame early while the carpet was sprayed with water to address the problem. Dott managed to level the match at 8–8 after the second session, but went on to lose 11–13. His defeat meant that, for the first time since 1988, no Scottish player competed in the World Championship quarter-finals.