Davis set to call it a day?

Dennis Taylor is waiting to learn whether his old rival Steve Davis will join him in retirement this summer after the worst season of the six-time world champion’s career.

Davis reached the first-round stage of only one of seven tournaments as he had a torrid run of results in the qualifying events.

He will miss the World Championship which begins next week after a 10-2 hammering in qualifying by Stephen Lee, so there will be no repeat of the heroics of last year when Davis knocked out John Higgins to reach the Crucible quarter-finals.

Davis will turn 54 in August and while his enthusiasm was boosted by the appointment of his long-time manager Barry Hearn as chairman of World Snooker last summer, the cue arm is no longer as sharp as the mind which controls it.

Should Davis retire, he would have no shortage of work.

He is on the World Snooker Board and has established himself as the BBC’s go-to snooker pundit.

And the exhibition snooker circuit, where the likes of Taylor continue to draw large crowds, would welcome the game’s greatest tactician and one of its quickest wits to its ranks.

Taylor, who will play in a Snooker Legends event at the Crucible on Saturday, said: “It’ll be interesting to see if Steve plays on next year.

“When I retired it was because playing in tournament qualifiers kills you.

“Suddenly you were in a ­squash-court environment, with seats for about a dozen people. I just couldn’t get used to that.

“It ended the careers for a few players.”

Taylor will be joined at the exhibition in Sheffield by Jimmy White, John Parrott, Kirk Stevens, John Virgo and Cliff Thorburn, with Michaela Tabb refereeing the light-hearted matches.