he reached the semi-final beating world champion stephen hendry in the last 16. the same year he reached the quarter-finals of the uk championship, where he beat willie thorne 9–0, james wattana 9–5 and terry murphy 9–7, before losing 5–9 to hendry, who went on to win the event. hunter played at the 1997 masters, where he lost 1–5 against mark williams in the first round.