WORLD SNOOKER CHAMPIONSHIP FINAL
THE CRUCIBLE • 2-3 MAY
[4] MARK SELBY 18-15 SHAUN MURPHY [7]
| [1] | 3-5 | Sun 1pm 49-57,
46-67, 68-65 (65 SM), 89-7 (89), 0-75 (75), 66-1, 8-71 (64), 54-80 (52 SM) |
| [2] | 7-2 | Sun 7pm 85-49
(85), 0-98 (98), 72-34 (67), 107-0 (86), 34-97 (64), 109-0 (57), 90-34 (90), 88-4, 69-26 |
| [3] | 4-4 | Mon 1pm 4-84 (77), 69-58 (62), 41-69, 134-0 (107), 104-14 (54, 50), 1-100 (100), 0-108 (56), 131-0 (62, 69) |
| [4] | 4-4 | Mon 7pm 70-28 (66), 48-73, 108-0 (68), 11-79 (58), 120-0 (120), 0-100 (100), 8-126 (103), 71-57 |
MARK SELBY held off a valiant attempt at a comeback by Shaun Murphy to win a fourth world snooker title at the Crucible on Bank Holiday Monday.
Resuming the second day of the Final trailing by three frames at 10-7 down, Murphy made a quick start with a 77 break to win the 18th.
Murphy also looked like adding the 19th to close the gap to just one after getting a snooker on the final blue before fluking it and getting the better of a safety battle on the pink.
Agonisingly, though, the black - rolled dead-weight towards the pocket - stayed out and in the jaws, allowing Selby to clip it in and win the frame.
In fairness to Murphy, he did well to recover immediately from that disappointment by taking the 20th frame before Selby produced the first century of the contest in the next with a well-taken 107.
The ton meant that the first four frames of the day had been split - and that, at 12-9, Murphy had failed to make any sort of in-roads into the granite Selby lead.
For sure, Harlow potter Murphy had tried to make headway in front of a boisterous capacity crowd at the Crucible - but putting a series of frames together was proving difficult for the 2005 champion.
Instead, it was Selby who threatened to pull away when he took the 22nd frame to stretch his lead to four for the first time.
Murphy responded to that with his first century of the match - and took the next frame as well - to set up a mammoth last segment of the session.
Selby knew he was guaranteed a lead heading into the evening - but the two possible scores, 13-12 and 14-11, would look and feel rather different.
Ultimately, Selby ensured he departed the afternoon still holding the three-frame advantage with which he had entered it, as two long reds set up breaks of 62 and 69.
In the first and third frames of the evening, the Leicester man twice opened his lead back to four, only for Murphy to strike back immediately on both occasions.
Nevertheless, Selby was well aware that if the players merely continued to exchange frames in the way that they were, he would get over the finish line first.
In the fifth frame of the night, and 30th in the match, Selby went four clear for a fourth time with a 120 break to put himself just a single frame away from a fourth world title.
But Murphy - who had already belied a complete lack of form heading into the tournament by getting to the Final - was not about to go down without a fight.
A quick-fire 100 break was followed by a brilliant 110 as Murphy cleared up to make the 108th century of the championships, a total which easily surpassed the previous best of 100 in 2019.
Better still for Murphy, Selby had finally started to show some nerves - he had snatched at a long red to allow Murphy in for the second of those centuries.
At 17-15 with the time ticking beyond 10pm, the crowd sensed there may still yet be a finish to match the Crucible drama of years long since past.
But a scrappy 33rd frame suited Selby down to the ground - and, though Murphy had the first opportunity at a difficult final red, he again left it in the jaws of the pocket.
Selby cleared up to restore a three-frame margin yet again - except this time there would be no further chances for Murphy to catch up.
In the end, Murphy only lost one of the four sessions - but he lost it badly, going down 7-2 on Sunday night to leave him with his overnight deficit.
And, even the first session, which Murphy actually won 5-3, will be the lingering source of irritation for him.
After all, the Magician had managed to get an ideal start by taking the first two frames of the match - and, though both players demonstrated some impressive long potting and safety play, neither of them were at their best among the balls in the early stages.
Murphy really needed to have built up a bigger lead over a slack Selby that afternoon - but, at just two behind, the latter could make sure the evening session was played on his own terms.
By the mid-session interval, Murphy's early lead had been swallowed up - and, after the players returned, Selby was in his element, bogging frames down and taking the last four of the night.
The last two of those were particularly painful to watch with Selby regularly taking 90 seconds per shot, and sometimes over two minutes.
Selby had already been warned by the match referee for taking too long on his shots when he used well over three minutes to line up an effort in his semi final victory over Stuart Bingham.
And it is not as if this is an unusual occurrence with Selby.
Ronnie O'Sullivan often has good reason to refer to Selby as the Torturer - and he once took over six minutes to make a shot in a match against John Higgins in the 2019 Northern Ireland Open.
For context, O'Sullivan compiled his famous maximum break at the Crucible in 1997 in a time of five minutes 20 seconds.
Returning to the semi final against Bingham - and, unsurprisingly, Selby's decision to carry on when needing five snookers in the last frame of the Friday evening session also caused a fair deal of opprobrium.
Meanwhile, on Saturday, the Selby v Bingham contest became the first Crucible semi final to fail to be completed inside the four scheduled sessions.
For sure, it came across as a case of sour grapes from Bingham when he suggested some of the play from Selby was on the verge of gamesmanship - but the Essex potter is certainly not alone in holding that opinion.
Of course, Selby did not deserve to be heckled and booed during his walk-on in the Final - and the complexities of snooker mean that it will always attract a variety of different styles.
The truth is, though, that Selby could win the next three World Snooker Championships at the Crucible to go level with Stephen Hendry on seven - and he still would not be a particularly fondly regarded player.
In fairness, it is not something which appears to bother him too much - indeed, he seems to revel in bogging matches down.
But, at a time when the appeal of snooker to future generations is being openly questioned by world number one Judd Trump, a sustained period of Selby success could prove fatal to the long-term prospects of the game.
Certainly, beating Selby on the baize is a difficult task. Unfortunately for snooker, watching Selby on the baize is immeasurably harder still.
WORLD SNOOKER CHAMPIONSHIP FINAL
THE CRUCIBLE • EARLIER RESULTS
THE CRUCIBLE • EARLIER RESULTS
FIRST ROUND [Best of 19 frames]
| [1] | Ronnie O'Sullivan | 10-4 | Mark Joyce | ||
| [16] | Anthony McGill | 10-5 | Ricky Walden | ||
| [9] | Ding Junhui | 9-10 | Stuart Bingham | ||
| [8] | Stephen Maguire | 4-10 | Jamie Jones |
| [5] | John Higgins | 10-7 | Tian Pengfei | ||
| [12] | Mark Williams | 10-4 | Sam Craigie | ||
| [13] | Mark Allen | 10-2 | Lyu Haotian | ||
| [4] | Mark Selby | 10-1 | Kurt Maflin |
| [3] | Neil Robertson | 10-3 | Liang Wenbo | ||
| [14] | Jack Lisowski | 10-9 | Ali Carter | ||
| [11] | Barry Hawkins | 10-3 | Matthew Selt | ||
| [6] | Kyren Wilson | 10-8 | Gary Wilson |
| [7] | Shaun Murphy | 10-7 | Mark Davis | ||
| [10] | Yan Bingtao | 10-6 | Martin Gould | ||
| [15] | David Gilbert | 10-4 | Chris Wakelin | ||
| [2] | Judd Trump | 10-4 | Liam Highfield |
SECOND ROUND [Best of 25 frames]
| [1] | Ronnie O'Sullivan | 12-13 | Anthony McGill | [16] | |
| Stuart Bingham | 13-6 | Jamie Jones | |||
| [5] | John Higgins | 7-13 | Mark Williams | [12] | |
| [13] | Mark Allen | 7-13 | Mark Selby | [4] |
| [3] | Neil Robertson | 13-9 | Jack Lisowski | [14] | |
| [11] | Barry Hawkins | 10-13 | Kyren Wilson | [6] | |
| [7] | Shaun Murphy | 13-7 | Yan Bingtao | [10] | |
| [15] | David Gilbert | 8-13 | Judd Trump | [2] |
QUARTER FINALS [Best of 25 frames]
| [16] | Anthony McGill | 12-13 | Stuart Bingham | ||
| [12] | Mark Williams | 3-13 | Mark Selby | [4] | |
| [3] | Neil Robertson | 8-13 | Kyren Wilson | [6] | |
| [7] | Shaun Murphy | 13-11 | Judd Trump | [2] |
SEMI FINALS [Best of 33 frames]
| Stuart Bingham | 15-17 | Mark Selby | [4] | ||
| [6] | Kyren Wilson | 12-17 | Shaun Murphy | [7] |
CENTURIES (108)
144 Shaun Murphy
142 Mark Selby
139 Kyren Wilson, Mark Allen
138 Liam Highfield, Ronnie O'Sullivan
137 Ronnie O'Sullivan, Barry Hawkins, Neil Robertson
136 Anthony McGill
135 John Higgins, Neil Robertson, Mark Selby
134 Mark Selby (3)
133 Kyren Wilson
132 David Gilbert, Mark Selby (2)
131 Stuart Bingham (2), Shaun Murphy, Kyren Wilson
130 Yan Bingtao, Anthony McGill (2)
129 Stuart Bingham
127 John Higgins, Stuart Bingham, Kyren Wilson
126 Liang Wenbo, Barry Hawkins, Anthony McGill (2), Neil Robertson (2)
125 Stuart Bingham, Mark Selby
124 Ronnie O'Sullivan, Shaun Murphy
123 Barry Hawkins
122 Stuart Bingham
121 Jack Lisowski, Jamie Jones, Mark Selby, Kyren Wilson
120 Stuart Bingham, Shaun Murphy, Mark Selby
119 Anthony McGill, Kyren Wilson, Stuart Bingham
117 Stuart Bingham, Shaun Murphy
116 Yan Bingtao, Mark Allen, Judd Trump, Jack Lisowski
115 Kyren Wilson
114 Judd Trump
113 Shaun Murphy, Neil Robertson, John Higgins
112 Ronnie O'Sullivan, Ricky Walden
111 David Gilbert, Tian Pengfei, Mark Williams, Judd Trump (2)
110 Neil Robertson, Kyren Wilson
109 Martin Gould, Shaun Murphy
108 Neil Robertson, Mark Williams, Stuart Bingham
107 Kyren Wilson, Barry Hawkins, John Higgins, Judd Trump, Mark Selby
106 Anthony McGill
105 Ricky Walden, Ding Junhui, Ronnie O'Sullivan, Anthony McGill, Judd Trump (2), Neil Robertson
104 Stuart Bingham, Shaun Murphy
103 Shaun Murphy
102 Mark Allen, Mark Williams, Kyren Wilson, Stuart Bingham
101 Mark Selby, Mark Williams, Yan Bingtao
100 David Gilbert, Neil Robertson (2), Yan Bingtao, Stuart Bingham, Shaun Murphy (2)
Live coverage provided by BBC and Eurosport
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