'He was a joy': Honoring the sport's taken talent two decades on.

All the young snooker player truly desired to do was practice the game.

A sporting bug, caught at the tender age of three with the help of a miniature snooker set on his family's living room table in the city of Leeds, would culminate in a pro playing days that saw him win six significant titles in half a dozen years.

The present year marks 20 years since the adored Hunter succumbed to cancer, just days before to his birthday marking 28 years.

But despite the loss of a once-in-a-generation player that rose above the sport he adored, his influence and memory on the game and those who knew him endure as strong as ever.

'His passion was clear': The Formative Years

"We'd never have known in a lifetime Paul would become a career sportsman," Hunter's mum states.

"However he just was passionate about it."

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

"He never stopped," he adds. "He practiced every night after school."

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

His natural ability would be nurtured by the 1986 World Champion Joe Johnson, from neighbouring Bradford, at a now closed venue in the north Leeds suburb of Yeadon.

Quick Success: The Path to Glory

With his mother and father's requests to do his homework often being ignored as training came first, his parents took the "chance" of taking Hunter out of school at the age of 14 to fully focus on carving out a career in the game.

It paid off in spades. Within five years, their adolescent had won his first ranking title, the Welsh Open of 1998.

Considered one of snooker's hardest tournaments to win because of the lineup featuring elite players only, Hunter won on three occasions, in consecutive years.

'A Gracious Competitor': A Legacy of Character

But for all his achievements in competition, away from the game Hunter's humble charm never faded.

"His demeanor was excellent did Paul," Alan says. "He got on with everybody."

"Upon meeting him you'd enjoy his company," Kristina adds. "Paul was fun. He'd make you comfortable."

Hunter's wife Lindsey, with whom he had daughter Evie, describes him as an "wonderful, youthful, and fun personality" who was "witty, generous" and "always the last to leave the party".

With his natural likability, boyish good looks and honest interview style, not to mention his prodigious ability, Hunter quickly became snooker's poster boy for the new millennium.

No wonder then, that he was christened 'The Snooker World's Beckham'.

Facing Adversity: Illness and Resilience

In the mid-2000s, a year that should have signaled the height of his career, Hunter was told he had cancer and would later undergo cancer therapy.

Multiple stories from across the professional tour highlight the man's extraordinary commitment to honor obligations to public appearances and promotional work, all while undergoing treatment.

Despite harsh reactions, Hunter played on through the illness and received a rapturous applause at The Crucible Theatre when he turned out for the World Championships that year.

When he passed away in October 2006, snooker's close-knit fraternity lost one of its best-loved members.

"It is tragic," Kristina says. "I wouldn't wish any mum and dad to lose a child."

A Foundation for the Future: Inspiring Youth

Hunter's true legacy would be felt not in high society but in local sports centers across the UK.

The foundation he inspired, 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, anti-social behavior in some areas dropped significantly.

"The goal was for a program to help offer a constructive activity," one official said.

The Foundation helped lay the groundwork for a major coaching programme, which has extended playing opportunities to children globally.

"He would have embraced what we've done with the sport and where it is today," a senior official in the sport stated.

Always Remembered: 20 Years Later

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

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

"We are happy to speak about Paul," she adds. "At first it was sad, but I'd rather somebody remember him than him not be mentioned at all."

While he never won the World Championship, the highly probable notion that Hunter would have gone on to lift snooker's top honor is a part of the sport's legend.

The Masters, the competition with which he is forever linked, commences later this month. The winner will lift the memorial cup.

But for all his successes, two decades after his death it is Paul Hunter's personality, as much his spectacular skill with a cue, that will ensure he is never forgotten.