Advertisement
Mark Selby poses with his new trophy. Anna Gowthorpe/PA Wire
big break

Leicester jester Mark Selby captures UK Championship

The world’s number one snooker player upped the ante in the evening session to win 10-6.

WORLD NUMBER ONE Mark Selby defeated close friend and fellow Englishman Shaun Murphy 10-6 to win the UK Championship title on Sunday.

The players had been locked at 4-4 at the end of the afternoon session in the best-of-19 frame final, before world number one Selby edged into a 6-5 lead in the evening.

Murphy won the next frame but Selby swept the following four to claim the biggest title of his career.

“It means a great deal. It makes it even more special to beat someone of Shaun’s class,” Selby told the BBC.

“It was a strange game, it was not pretty. I was twitching all over the place.

“I never really give in until the last ball is potted and that is me all over. If I was not like that, I would not have got to the final.”

Sunday’s final was the first all-English affair since 1992.

Murphy, who won the UK title in 2008, was magnanimous in defeat.

He said, “Mark is the hardest player on tour by a mile. He is a worthy world number one and fully deserves tonight… I have been beaten by the best in the world.”

Selby, known on the snooker world tour as the Jester from Leicester, picked up a winner’s cheque of £125,000 for his troubles.

- © AFP, 2012

Modest Messi shrugs off 86-goal record

Connacht are a bloody good team declares Biarritz fullback Balshaw