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.