“Stephen Hendry has been rubbish lately. He’s finished.”

These words have been uttered by more than the odd snooker fan or two in the last couple of years. People are disappointed in the former star, but are learning to accept the fact that even stars get old and start to lose it.

It’s not surprising that people react this way. Hendry used to make the impossible possible, over and over again. With seven world championship titles, 36 ranking tournament victories, nine maximum breaks and more than £8.5million in career winnings, this Member of the Order of the British Empire truly is worthy of the epithet “legend”.

And yes, looking back on his glory days it’s quite obvious that his technique has deteriorated. His most recent ranking success was in the 2005 Malta Cup and this year he fell outside the top eight for the first time in 11 years. It’s understandable that people are disappointed and expect more of him. Hendry used to be almost impossible to beat. He was a kind of snooker superhero, and now he’s just a regular player in the top 16.

A regular snooker player in the top 16. Wait. Something’s obviously wrong with that sentence. If Hendry is in the top 16, in fact tenth in the world rankings, he must still be amazing, right? Let’s look at it from another perspective.

Hendry reached the final at the 2006 UK Championship, the semi-final at the 2008 World Championship and the quarter final at the 2009 World Championship where he also compiled a maximum break.

 These are all quite remarkable feats and if it weren’t for the fact that Hendry was an extraordinary player in the past and used to be much better, we would be very impressed. Let’s pretend for a second that Hendry was a young shooting star whose career had just begun.

We would congratulate him and probably predict a bright future for him instead of complaining. He would be seen as a young, upcoming talent and people would speculate about when he would take his first world championship title.

Nevertheless, the fact remains. Hendry is not getting any younger and he undoubtedly passed his peak a long time ago. His career will inevitably go into decline sooner or later, possibly sooner than that of the younger players in the top 16. But he’s still a damn good snooker player.

We should enjoy watching him just as we enjoy watching all the other top players. Every now and then we even get to see a glimpse of the old Hendry – always something that’s worth waiting for.