'He brought laughter': Honoring the sport's taken talent a score of years on.

Everything Paul Hunter truly desired to do was practice the game.

A competitive passion, sparked at the age of three with the help of a small snooker set on his parents' coffee table in the city of Leeds, would culminate in a professional career that saw him win half a dozen major wins in six years.

This year marks 20 years since the beloved Hunter passed away from cancer, just days before to his 28th birthday.

But notwithstanding the loss of a once-in-a-generation player that rose above the sport he adored, his influence and memory on the sport and those who were close to him remain as powerful today.

'He just loved it': Early Beginnings

"It was impossible to foresee in a million years the boy would become a career sportsman," Kristina Hunter says.

"Yet he just was passionate about it."

Alan Hunter recalls how his son "cared little for anything else" besides snooker as a youth.

"He never stopped," he says. "He competed every night after school."

After successfully badgering his dad to take him to a local club to play on full-size tables at the age of eight, the aspiring talent made the jump from miniature games with remarkable ease.

His mercurial talent would be developed by the 1986 World Champion Joe Johnson, from neighbouring Bradford, at a now defunct club in the area of Yeadon.

Metoric Ascent: A Star is Born

With his mother and father's requests to do his homework regularly going unheeded as practice took priority, his parents took the "gamble" of taking Hunter out of school at the fourteen years old to fully concentrate on building a career in the game.

It was a resounding success. Within a short period, their still-teenage son had won his first ranking title, the late-nineties Welsh championship.

Considered one of snooker's most difficult competitions to win because of the involvement of exclusively the best, Hunter won on three occasions, in 2001, 2002 and 2004.

'A Gracious Competitor': A Legacy of Character

But for all his success on the table, away from the game Hunter's approachable nature never left him.

"He was incredibly composed did Paul," Alan says. "He got on with everybody."

"If you met him you'd like him," Kristina continues. "He brought joy. He'd make you comfortable."

Hunter's wife Lindsey, with whom he had a daughter, describes him as an "amazing, young cheeky beautiful soul" who was "funny, kind" and "typically the final guest at the party".

With his effortless appeal, handsome features and honest interview style, not to mention his prodigious ability, Hunter quickly became snooker's pin-up for the new millennium.

No wonder then, that he was nicknamed 'The Beckham of the Baize'.

Courage in Crisis: Illness and Resilience

In 2005, a year that should have been the zenith of his talent, Hunter was found to have cancer and would later undergo chemotherapy.

Multiple stories from across the snooker circuit highlight the man's extraordinary willingness to fulfill commitments to charity matches, tournaments, and media duties, all while going through treatment.

Despite difficult symptoms, Hunter played on through the illness and received a rapturous applause at The famous Sheffield venue when he competed in the World Championships that year.

When he succumbed in the mid-2000s, snooker's close-knit fraternity lost one of its most popular brothers.

"The pain is immense," Kristina says. "I wouldn't wish any mum and dad to go through that pain."

An Enduring Legacy: Inspiring Youth

Hunter's true impact would be felt not in high society but in community venues across the UK.

The Paul Hunter Foundation, set up before his death, would provide accessible training to children all over the country.

The initiative was so successful that, according to reports, issues with young people in some areas fell sharply.

"The aim remained for a program to help provide a positive outlet," one organizer said.

The Foundation helped pave the way for a huge coaching programme, which has provided playing opportunities to children globally.

"Paul would have loved what we've done with the sport and where it is today," a chairman in the sport stated.

Forever in Memory: 20 Years Later

Archive videos of their son's matches on YouTube help his parents stay "connected to him".

"I can bring it up and I can watch Paul anytime," Kristina says. "It's a comfort!"

"We don't mind talking about Paul," she adds. "At first it was sad, but I'd rather somebody talk than him not be recalled."

Even though he never won the World Championship, the highly probable notion that Hunter would have gone on to lift snooker's ultimate trophy is etched into the sport's history.

The Masters, the competition with which he is forever linked, starts later this month. The winner will lift the trophy named in his honor.

But for all his successes, two decades after his death it is Paul Hunter's spirit, as much his brilliant talent on the table, that will ensure he is always remembered.