Murphy Beats Selby to take his first Ranking Title since 2011

Murphy Dominated  a Final against his friend Selby

To Take his 2nd Title in 2 Months

Glory for Murphy this time

Quarter Finals:

Allen 5-3 Higgins

Dott 4-5 Murphy

Selby 5-1 McManus

Joyce 3-5 Fu

Semi-Finals:

Mark Allen 4-6 Shaun Murphy

Mark Selby 6-4 Marco Fu

Final:

Shaun Murphy 10(19)6 Mark Selby

Murphy dominated the final against Selby, and played the best of his form to go 7-2 up, with breaks of 64, 80, 54, 98 and Back-to-Back centuries in the last 2 frames of the session - 105 & 112.

Murphy was showing a lot of confidence and had good break-building, safety, and was fantastic with the long pots. However Mark was playing far from his best, making a lot of mistakes and giving many chances to Murphy, who was looking to take it all.

In the second session, Murphy was playing badly, and the match was going scrappy, perfect way for a Selby's comeback, and he reduced the deficit to 6-8, and made a very good 49 break in the 15th frame, considering the position of the balls, but Murphy responded that with an exquisite 78 break, to put himself just one frame away from the title.
In the 16th and last frame, Selby made mistakes, and Murphy punished him, with breaks of 27, 24 and 20. From that point, Selby was needing 3 snookers, and he got 2, but Murphy finally won the match after pot the pink.

After the match, Shaun said:
"Mark was under no pressure at 7-2, I knew he would come back and that I would have to wait for my chances. We're very good friends and we've beaten each other many times.
Today was a good match, we both played well in parts. I'm so happy to win a ranking event again, it has been a long time. Snooker is a very tough game now so these events are hard to win. There are three more tournaments to go this season and maybe there's something left in the tank.
There's no secret to it, I've just been working very hard and practising every day for a long time. It worked in Poland and it's worked here. On Tuesday I'll be back on the practice table."

Selby said:  "In the first session I started badly. Giving someone of Shaun's capability a 7-2 lead is hard to come back from. Shaun played very well all day. He punished me and won some really important frames, especially the one to go 9-6."

Shaun now is looking in very decent form, winning two titles in the last two months. He is now up for the next tournaments, principally the big World Championship.

Shaun now is seeded 8 for the World Championship, and he needs to be at least 7th if he wants to avoid a quarter final encounter with Ronnie O`Sullivan, but there is still 2 Ranking Events to go.

For Selby it was another defeat in a final - He lost 8 out of 11 Ranking Finals and lost 5 out of 6 finals this season.
Selby can win matches when it goes scrappy, but can't make something against someone who can take frames in one visit.
He ever try to do everything to win, and play slow and slow to turn matches scrappy.
He isn't playing like years ago and I don't fancy him to win one out of the next 3 events this season.
He is now seeded 3 for the World Championship, and just will face Ronnie O`Sullivan IF he reaches to the final.



The tournament in-all had a lot of things to be talked about and needs to get better for the world tour back to Hainan next year.
One point was that Hainan is a totally isolated island, and the ticket prices is nothing attractive.
The calendar tight, the problems in the city structure and the distractions in the arena avoided the players to play their best there.

The next event will be the PC Final, running from 25 to 29 march.

Ronnie O`Sullivan starts his run day 26 against Scott Donaldson, and you ever can follow all results and news from the world of snooker at Ronnie O`Sullivan Brasil on Facebook.