'He brought laughter': Reflecting on the sport's departed star 20 years on.

All Paul Hunter always wished to do was practice the game.

A love for the game, developed at the tender age of three with the help of a tiny snooker set on his parents' coffee table in the city of Leeds, would result in a pro playing days that saw him win half a dozen major wins in six years.

Now marks a score of years since the popular Hunter succumbed to cancer, just days before to his 28th birthday.

But in spite of the loss of a once-in-a-generation player that rose above the game he loved, his legacy and impact on snooker and those who were close to him persist as vibrant now.

'The game was his life': A Childhood Obsession

"We'd never have known in a million years our son would become a career sportsman," Kristina Hunter recalls.

"Yet he just adored it."

His dad recounts how his son "showed no interest in anything else" other than snooker as a young boy.

"He was relentless," he notes. "He competed every night after school."

After successfully badgering his dad to take him to a community venue to play on regulation tables at the age of eight, the budding player made the transition from miniature games with aplomb.

His natural ability would be nurtured by the former world title holder Joe Johnson, from nearby Bradford, at a now closed venue in the north Leeds suburb of Yeadon.

Quick Success: A Star is Born

With his family's urging to do his homework regularly going unheeded as the game dominated, his parents took the "gamble" of taking Hunter out of school at the fourteen years old to fully concentrate on forging a career in the game.

It was a resounding success. Within five years, their adolescent had won his maior professional trophy, the Welsh Open of 1998.

Considered one of snooker's toughest events to win because of the presence of exclusively the best, Hunter triumphed a trio of times, in the early 2000s.

'A Gracious Competitor': A Legacy of Character

But for all his achievements in competition, away from the game Hunter's down-to-earth charisma never faded.

"He had a great temperament did Paul," Alan says. "He connected with everybody."

"Upon meeting him you'd take to him," Kristina adds. "He brought joy. He'd make you feel at ease."

Hunter's wife Lindsey, with whom he had daughter Evie, describes him as an "amazing, young cheeky beautiful soul" who was "funny, kind" and "always the last to leave the party".

With his natural likability, boyish good looks and candid way with the press, not to mention his prodigious ability, Hunter quickly became snooker's pin-up for the new millennium.

No wonder then, that he was nicknamed 'A Sporting Icon'.

A Brave Battle: A Fight Against Cancer

In 2005, a year that should have marked the peak of his powers, Hunter was found to have cancer and would later undergo aggressive treatment.

Multiple stories from across the snooker circuit speak of the man's extraordinary willingness to honor obligations to charity matches, tournaments, and media duties, all while undergoing treatment.

Despite difficult symptoms, Hunter kept playing through the illness and received a standing ovation at The Crucible Theatre when he turned out for the World Championships that year.

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

"The pain is immense," Kristina says. "No parent should experience any mum and dad to suffer such a loss."

An Enduring Legacy: Giving Back

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

The Paul Hunter Foundation, set up before his death, would provide no-cost coaching to children all over the country.

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

"The idea was for a platform to help offer a constructive activity," one organizer said.

The Foundation helped pave the way for a significant coaching programme, which has opened up playing opportunities to children internationally.

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

Forever in Memory: Two Decades On

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

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

"We don't mind talking about Paul," she adds. "Before it would be tears, but I'd rather somebody talk than him not be spoken of."

Even though he never won the World Championship, the highly probable notion that Hunter would have eventually won snooker's greatest prize is ingrained in the sport's legend.

The Masters, the competition with which he is most associated, begins 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 spectacular skill with a cue, that will ensure he is never forgotten.