Stuart Bingham wins 2015 World Championship

May 4th 2015

The day Stuart Bingham shocked the World

The Best Player of the World, Stuart Bingham ladies and gentlemen!

Well, it's hard to believe the World Championship 2015 is already over, but what a standard we had at the Crucible Theatre this year, reaching to an incredible record-breaking tally of 86 Century Breaks made throughout the 17 days.

Mark Selby out in the Last 16, Ronnie O`Sullivan and Neil Robertson out in the Quarters and Judd Trump crashed in the Semis. It wasn't by nothing this World Championship was already being expected as the most open ever.

The Final

Shaun Murphy 15-18 Stuart Bingham

Well, this final was much more like a battle of mental skills than any other thing.

Stuart Bingham played a solid game to reach the Final, never playing shots which could put him under pressure and not trying to take a step bigger than his legs. But I think he clicked when he was in a decider against Judd Trump in the Semi-Final and decided to take the risk playing a very difficult plant, he might thought: "I've beaten Ronnie, I'm in the semis, it's my chance and I've got nothing to lose.". Obviously he was successfully in that plant and that must gave him lots of confidence and self belief that he could be World Champion.

Shaun Murphy was playing in the best "Alex Higgins' style", going for every long shot and half chances. This style is good, great! But you got to be on top of your game to play this way and beat your opponents, that's why Alex Higgins won it only once at the Crucible, but the fact is that Murphy was making of every half chance a frame-winning break and he was punishing opponent's mistakes time after time, he looked unbeatable.

There wasn't much Bingham could do when Murphy won the first three frames, but as himself said he "settled down going 4-4 at the end of the first session".

But Murphy also started the second session like a Champion, he won the 4 frames before the interval featuring Back-to-Back Centuries in the Final that later proved to be one of the Greatest Ever in a matter of standard. With Murphy leading 8-4 then it's the point of the match when I think the mental started to have a big weight, Bingham should be happy coming 7-10 down for the second day, but after playing arguably the best Snooker of his life, all of a sudden he had won 4 of the last 5 frames to trail only 8-9 overnight.

Bingham started the second session as strong as he could, Breaks of 112 and 50 gave him the lead for the first time in the Final at 10-9. Shaun Murphy then started to miss far too many easy shots, and decided to put a little bit more of hard work on the safety department. Bingham was putting in some aggressive shots and all them seemed to be going his way. This is how he stormed into an almost irreversible 15-12 lead.

Some good breaks from a recomposed Murphy rarely giving Bingham a shot took the match all squared again, 15 all.

At this point you would say that Bingham should start shaking and if he did, it should be understandable as it's the first time he's beyond the Quarter Finals at the Crucible, already playing at the Final which is the biggest match of his life, should be normal if he dropped down to this pressure. Murphy was playing his 3rd Crucible Final, was strong favorite at the Moment and nobody expected him to shake, but Snooker is a great sport because it's up to one player only and you never know what's gonna happen.

Murphy was falling under the pressure, one of the greatest players in the cue action was cueing as across as a school boy holding the cue for the first time, his long balls were nowhere near the pockets and it was Bingham who held himself together all the way to win the last three frames in such a classy way to complete the best Championship of his life and become World Champion.

It was a great Final, 33 frames and 30 Breaks over fifty, including 6 centuries with Bingham's 123 Break in the 14th Frame being the 84th Century of the Crucible this year (we had 86 in total at the end), breaking the 2009 Record, so it proves the tournament in a whole was special.

I gotta be honest, I never imagined Bingham holding the Trophy at the end, I'm very surprised with that but I'm not shocked because we had about 25 players coming to this World Championship playing some amazing stuff, many of them on the peak of their form and career. 

More than deserved title for Stuart Bingham who showed some amazing display at the Crucible, winning it at the first time beyond the Quarter Finals, after 20 years as a professional and at 38 years of age is a great achievement, and he meant to be a great character, hope he keeps like this after becoming World Champion.

Of course commiserations to Shaun Murphy who entertained a lot the crowd this year, playing an amazing attacking game. Although he always had to be on very good days to win with this style, and unfortunately for him it didn't happen in the 17th day. Did pressure hit him? I think so, but a great player who made a great achievement reaching to his 3rd Crucible Final only deserves congratulations.

Just to talk a bit ahead of the next season which Bingham will play as the big ambassador of the sport as World Champion, nobody loves the sport more than him, he's always played in every event he could and I think it won't change, better than our previous winners who missed a lot of events during the next season. But it's something just time will tell and I will comeback here at the Blog to make two big posts talking about the season gone and the season coming up where I will talk better about those things, including the fact Bingham played his 120th match of the season in this Final, it was more than anyone and proves 'burn-out' is not an excuse for defeats.

It's it for now, Congratulations to Stuart Bingham, the new World Snooker Champion, and keep alert on Ronnie O`Sullivan Brasil on Facebook for some fresh Snooker news as we celebrate reaching the special 1.000 likes.

2015 World Snooker Champion