Gary Wilkinson joined the professional ranks for the start of the 1987/88 season having finished at the top of the amateur rankings for qualifying events. He did not qualify for the world amateur championship as he only got to the northern final of the English event in 1986 but he did represent England in the Home International matches.

As a professional he got off to a good start and reached the last 16 of only his second event, the 1987 Grand Prix and reached the same stage of the British Open later in the season. In both events Silvino Francisco, the world number ten was Gary's victim at the last 32 stage. Although he failed to qualify for the Crucible, he ended that debut season with a ranking of 45. The following season, although he did not gain a last 16 place in any tournament, he made the last 32 on four occasions including the world championship moving him up to 38th. He reached the semi-final of the non-ranking English Professional championship as well.

Things really started to happen in 1989/90. He reached the semi-finals of both the opening ranking events, the Hong Kong and Asian Opens and also the UK championship where he whitewashed Jimmy White 9-0 in the quarters before losing to Steve Davis. These performances helped put his ranking up to 20th and he was poised to move even higher. A semi-final in the next season's Dubai Classic was followed by a Mercantile Credit quarter-final and he then reached his first ranking final, the 1991 British Open, where he lost to Stephen Hendry only in the deciding nineteenth frame. In the interim he had made it to the quarter-finals of the World Matchplay, an invitation event. He rounded off that season with a quarter-final at Sheffield losing 13-3 to Jimmy White but astonishingly he was up to number five when the new rankings were published.

1991/92 was not so successful as regards to ranking events, his best effort being a quarter-final in the Welsh Open but in other events he faired better. He reached the semi-finals of two World Series events, the Scottish Masters and Indian Challenge as well as the Pontins Professional and reached the last eight of the Thai Masters but the undoubted highlight of the season and possibly his whole career came in the World Matchplay. Victories over John Parrott, Jimmy White and, in the final, Steve Davis gave him his first major title - and £70,000!

What everyone assumed was going to be a very successful career seemed then to go into reverse despite joining Ian Doyle's Cuemasters stable. In 1992/3 he only reached the last 16 in only four of the nine ranking events although he was runner up in the Scottish Masters but after just two seasons in the elite he was out of the top 16 and to date he has not made it back. In the next few seasons there were the odd quarter-final appearances, most notably in the 1995 world championship but he has never looked like getting to another major final.

He has also suffered some fitness problems and after seven seasons in the bottom half of the top 32 he finally dropped out of that group at the end of the 1999/2000 season and although some encouraging signs have been seen, that slide continued over the next two seasons, dropping him down to 46th.

It now seems unlikely that Gary will make it back to the top especially as the competition is now so strong and he looks like going down as another of those players who have failed, for one reason or another to live up to early potential even though he has collected over £800,000 in prize money to date.

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