Mark Selby

This article is about the snooker player. For the musician of the same name, see Mark Otis Selby .

Mark Selby
birthday	19th June 1983 (age 37)
place of birth	Leicester
nationality	England
Nickname (s)	The Jester from Leicester, Mark the Shark
professional	since 1999
Prize money	£ 6,480,034 (as of May 2, 2021)
Highest break	147 (3 ×)
Century breaks	691 (as of May 2, 2021)
Main tour successes
World championships	4th
Ranking tournament victories	20th
Minor tournament victories	7th
World rankings
Highest WRL place	1 (Sep. 2011 – Nov. 2012, Dec. 2012 – Feb. 2013, Apr. – Jun. 2013, May – Jul., Aug. – Dec. 2014, Feb. 2015 – Mar. 2019)
Current WRL location	2 (as of May 4, 2021)

Mark Selby (born June 19, 1983 in Leicester ) is a snooker and pool player from England . He is the four-time reigning world champion in snooker.

Career

In 1998 Selby was the English U15 champion. He was then allowed to play on the UK Tour , where his results were enough to qualify for the first-class professional tour. So he became a professional player for the 1999/2000 season. Two months earlier, Selby's father died of cancer. His last will was that his son should one day become world snooker champion. His first major success on the Snooker Main Tour was reaching the final of the Regal Scottish Open 2003, in which he was defeated by David Gray . In the snooker world rankings for the 2005/06 season he was among the top 32 for the first time.

Blackball

In 2006 he won the WEPF World Championship in Blackball , the English version of 8-Ball . Then he made the decision to concentrate entirely on snooker in the future.

snooker

2005/06 season and 2006/07 season

After he had already reached the World Cup finals in 2005 and 2006, he managed to march through to the final at the 2007 World Cup as an unseeded player , which only two players ( Terry Griffiths in 1979 and Shaun Murphy in 2005 ) had achieved. He proved particularly strong on nerves when he was only able to turn the game one frame away from the elimination in the quarter and semi-finals and win with the last and decisive frame. In the final, too, he almost made up for a failed 1: 7 session and a 4:12 deficit after the first day of the final with a 6-0 series on the second day. Nevertheless, he was defeated by John Higgins in a match that lasted until 0:55 clock at the end with 13:18.

With his success at this tournament, he made it into the top 16 snooker players in the world for the first time, and in the official world rankings for the 2007/08 season he was 11th.

2007/08 season

Mark Selby at the 2011 Paul Hunter Classic

On December 13, 2007 Selby played at the UK Championship in the quarter-final match against Marco Fu with 77 minutes, the longest frame ever played in a live broadcast of a world ranking tournament. With his entry into the semi-finals, he was one of the five best snooker players in the Provisional Ranking , the provisional world ranking , after this tournament .

On January 20, 2008 he won the Masters with a 10: 3 win in the final against Stephen Lee, his first title on the Main Tour . He first appeared in the traditional invitation tournament and also played the highest break of the tournament with 141 points in the last frame of the final (together with Ken Doherty ).

Selby won his first ranking tournament on February 17, 2008, when he prevailed in the final of the Welsh Open with 9: 8 against Ronnie O'Sullivan , who was leading in the preliminary ranking at that time , after he had already been behind with 5: 8. He was one of only three players who could win two tournaments this season. Thanks to further good results, he climbed to fourth place in the official world rankings at the end of the season. His surprising first round defeat at the final World Cup prevented an even better placement.

2008/09 and 2009/10 seasons

In the 2008/09 season Selby reached the final at both invitation tournaments, the Jiangsu Classic and the Masters, but could not win any of them. In the ranking tournaments, he managed two quarter-finals as well as in the final World Cup, where he was defeated in the quarter-finals to the eventual winner John Higgins. As a result, he fell back to 7th place in the world rankings.

The following season began, among other things, with two first-round defeats in ranked tournaments. It wasn't until January 2010 that he had his first sense of achievement. In his third appearance at the Masters, Selby reached the final for the third time and this time prevailed 10: 9 against Ronnie O'Sullivan. With that he secured his second Masters title. The semi-final defeat at the World Snooker Championship (14:17 against Graeme Dott ) was his best result this season in a ranking tournament. He lost another two places.

2010/11 season to 2013/14 season

At the beginning of the 2010/11 season he was world number 9; he won the second tournament of the newly introduced Players Tour Championship (PTC; fewer points were distributed there than in the ranked tournaments). At the German Masters he reached the final in February 2011, in which he was defeated by Mark Williams . Two months later he was again in the final of the China Open , this time he lost to Judd Trump . In August 2011, Selby won his second PTC tournament with the Paul Hunter Classic and thus consolidated his top position in the preliminary world rankings. At the following Shanghai Masters - more than three years after winning the Welsh Open - he finally achieved his second victory in a fully-fledged ranking tournament.

Selby 2015 at the German Masters

In August 2012 he defended his title at the Paul Hunter Classic in Fürth with a 4-1 final win over Joe Swail . After being ousted from number one in the world rankings by Judd Trump, he returned to the top of the rankings by winning the UK Championship . With his 4-3 final victory over Graeme Dott at the Munich Open , he also won the second PTC tournament of the season in Germany.

In November 2013, Selby won the Antwerp Open with a 4-3 final victory over Ronnie O'Sullivan and thus his fifth title in a tournament in the PTC series. In the semi-final game of the UK Championship against Ricky Walden , he played the 100th official maximum break .

At the end of the 2013/14 season , he won his first world title by defeating defending champion O'Sullivan in the final 18:14. As the ninth player, he had won the three most important snooker titles - World Cup, Masters and UK Championship - at least once.

2014/15 season

In August 2014 Selby won the Riga Open by beating Mark Allen 4-3 in the final . It was his sixth title in a PTC tournament.

In the final of the German Masters 2015 in Berlin's Tempodrom, he defeated Shaun Murphy 9: 7 and thus sat at the top of the world rankings. In April 2015 he won the China Open by beating Gary Wilson 10-2 in the final .

At the 2015 World Cup , he was surprisingly eliminated in the round of 16 against Anthony McGill with 9:13. He thus continued the Crucible tradition; no world champion has yet succeeded there (since 1977) in defending the title he won for the first time.

In the same year he was inducted into the Snooker Hall of Fame along with John Parrott .

2015/16 season

In 2016 he was also able to win the world title. His 18:14 win in the final against his opponent Ding Junhui brought him his second World Cup title after 2014. Selby is the sixth player to have won the World Cup more than once. As part of the award ceremony, as an avowed fan, he showed a flag of the Leicester City football club , which became English football champions for the first time on the same day - May 2, 2016 .

Season 2016/17

Selby, who had a bad start to the 2016/17 season , then won the Paul Hunter Classic for the third time in August , becoming the tournament's record winner. At the next ranking tournament, the Shanghai Masters , he reached the final, which he lost to Ding Junhui 6:10. At the International Championship he took revenge against Ding with a 10-1 final victory over the Chinese. He also finished the UK Championship as the winner, in the final he defeated Ronnie O'Sullivan 10: 7. This was followed by a series of mixed results; it was not until the Players Championship that he reached the quarter-finals of a ranking tournament again. He then got off to a good start in the China Open ; after surviving the round of 16 against Andrew Higginson 5: 4, he also made it to the final and won the penultimate tournament of the season with a 10: 8 win over Mark Williams.

At the 2017 World Cup , Selby easily reached the semi-finals, which he won against last year's final opponent Ding only after a hard fight at 17:15. In the final he was already 4:10 behind against John Higgins , but was able to turn the match around and finally win with 18:15. He was the fourth player in history to defend his world title.

Season 2017/18

Due to a household accident in July 2017 in which he broke his big toe, he missed the first tournaments of the 2017/18 season . At the International Championship in early November he showed strength again and moved into the final, in which he defeated Mark Allen 10: 7. After the World Cup, he defended a title from last year for the second time. At the following Shanghai Masters he was eliminated after victories over Chris Wakelin and Alan McManus (each 5: 4) with a 3: 5 defeat against Mark Williams in the round of 16. The second half of the season was also mixed. By the end of the last sixteen at the latest, except for the World Grand Prix , where he reached the semi-finals, it was mostly the final destination . At the UK Championship , he retired as defending champion in round 2. He was also the defending champion at the China Open , where he made it back to the finals after tight opening games. He won the tournament by beating Barry Hawkins 11-3 in the final . At the 2018 World Snooker Championship he was defeated by Joe Perry 4:10 in the round of 32 . Selby finished the season at number 1 in the world .

Season 2018/19

Selby started the 2018/19 season at the World Open , where he lost to Noppon Saengkham in the round of 16. His only tournament win of the season was at the China Championship , when he defeated John Higgins 10: 9 in the decisive frame in the final. After that, his season was very volatile, only at the Northern Ireland Open he could still reach the semi-finals, which he lost 5-6 to Ronnie O'Sullivan. At the UK Championship he was eliminated in the first round against the amateur James Cahill after a 3-6 . After Selby failed at the Tour Championship in the quarterfinals 8: 9 to Neil Robertson and Ronnie O'Sullivan won the tournament, he lost the top position in the world rankings to O'Sullivan after 215 weeks in a row. At the World Cup in Sheffield he was also eliminated early, in the round of 16 he was defeated by Gary Wilson 10:13. He later published that he was suffering from depression at the time . He regained his mental strength with the help of Chris Henry .

Season 2019/20

In the 2019/20 season he won two of the four Home Nations tournaments with the English Open and the Scottish Open . In addition, he reached the semifinals in some tournaments, including the World Cup . There he was defeated by Ronnie O'Sullivan in the decider despite a 16:14 lead with 16:17, it was his first defeat against O'Sullivan at the Crucible Theater in the third clash.

Season 2020/21

With the European Masters and the Scottish Open , Selby won two more ranking tournaments. In the final of the shoot-out he was defeated by Ryan Day, previously he won eleven ranked tournament games in a row, thus setting the record for Stephen Hendry. At the Snooker World Championship in 2021 he defeated Shaun Murphy in the final with 18:15 and was world champion for the fourth time. Both he and Murphy are looked after by the same trainer, Chris Henry .

Style of play

Typical of Selby's style of play is the long deliberation before shocks and his patience, which means that he does not gamble for luck, but often waits until what he thinks is a good opportunity. His strengths include, in particular, the safety game , breakbuilding and punching long balls. Furthermore, Selby is known for punishing even small mistakes by his opponents. Selby is a master at "imposing your own rhythm, your own script and analytically calculating all eventualities," says journalist Bertram Job. Carsten Scheele also saw Selby in 2016 as a representative of the “modern snooker game”. He always tries to avoid mistakes and has great nerve strength and willpower.

As part of the 2021 World Snooker Championship , Selby's semi-final opponent, Stuart Bingham, complained about his slow game and Bingham's view of pauses that Selby needed to think too long. Then the seven-time world champion Stephen Hendry compared Selby with a vampire who sucked the adrenaline out of his opponent. Shaun Murphy also referred to Selby as the “best all-rounder” at the 2021 World Cup. Ronnie O'Sullivan called Selby, also based on his slow, persistent game, as a "torturer". He later praised Selby for his tactical game and his attitude of never giving up.

successes

Ranked tournaments

Mark Selby 2015 with the German Masters trophy

• Welsh Open - 2008
• Shanghai Masters - 2011
• German Masters - 2015
• UK Championship - 2012 , 2016
• World Snooker Championship - 2014 , 2016 , 2017 , 2021
• Paul Hunter Classic - 2016
• International Championship - 2016 , 2017
• China Open - 2015 , 2017 , 2018
• China Championship - 2018
• English Open - 2019
• Scottish Open - 2019 , 2020
• European Masters - 2020 (2)

Minor ranking tournaments

• Players Tour Championship - Event 2 - 2010
• Paul Hunter Classic - 2011 , 2012
• Munich Open - 2013
• Antwerp Open - 2013
• Riga Open - 2014
• Gdynia Open - 2016

Invitation tournaments

• Wuxi Classic - 2011
• Masters - 2008 , 2010 , 2013

Blackball

• WEPF 8 Ball World Championship - 2006

Final results

Ranked tournament games: 30 (20 wins)

Legend (gew: verl) World Championships (4: 1) UK Championship (2: 1) other (14: 7)

the numbers in brackets indicate the number of wins (> 1)

place	No.	year	competition	Final opponent	Result
finalist	1.	2003	Scottish Open	David Gray	7: 9
finalist	2.	2007	World Snooker Championship	John Higgins	13:18
winner	1.	2008	Welsh Open	Ronnie O'Sullivan	9: 8
finalist	3.	2011	German Masters	Mark Williams	7: 9
finalist	4th	2011	China Open	Judd Trump	8:10
winner	2.	2011	Shanghai Masters	Mark Williams	10: 9
finalist	5.	2012	Welsh Open	Ding Junhui	6: 9
winner	3.	2012	UK Championship	Shaun Murphy	10: 6
finalist	6th	2013	China Open	Neil Robertson	6:10
finalist	7th	2013	UK Championship	Neil Robertson	7:10
finalist	8th.	2014	World Open	Shaun Murphy	6:10
winner	4th	2014	World Snooker Championship	Ronnie O'Sullivan	18:14
winner	5.	2015	German Masters	Shaun Murphy	9: 7
winner	6th	2015	China Open	Gary Wilson	10: 2
winner	7th	2016	World Snooker Championship (2)	Ding Junhui	18:14
winner	8th.	2016	Paul Hunter Classic	Tom Ford	4: 2
finalist	9.	2016	Shanghai Masters	Ding Junhui	6:10
winner	9.	2016	International Championship	Ding Junhui	10: 1
winner	10.	2016	UK Championship (2)	Ronnie O'Sullivan	10: 7
winner	11.	2017	China Open (2)	Mark Williams	10: 8
winner	12th	2017	World Snooker Championship (3)	John Higgins	18:15
winner	13th	2017	International Championship (2)	Mark Allen	10: 7
winner	14th	2018	China Open (3)	Barry Hawkins	11: 3
winner	15th	2018	China Championship	John Higgins	10: 9
winner	16.	2019	English Open	David Gilbert	9: 1
winner	17th	2019	Scottish Open	Jack Lisowski	9: 6
winner	18th	2020	European Masters	Martin Gould	9: 8
winner	19th	2020	Scottish Open (2)	Ronnie O'Sullivan	9: 3
finalist	19th	2021	Snooker shoot-out	Ryan Day	24:67 (points)
winner	20th	2021	World Snooker Championship (4)	Shaun Murphy	18:15

Web links

Commons : Mark Selby  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Mark Selby at CueTracker
• Mark Selby in the Snooker Database (English)
• Mark Selby at Snooker.org
• Mark Selby at wst.tv (English)
• Mark Selby at the Pro Snooker Blog (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Ranking Records: World Number One. Number One Players (updated 30/07/2018) :. WPBSA , accessed January 4, 2019 .  
2. ↑ ^{a b} Chris Turner: Player Profile: Mark Selby. Chris Turner's Snooker Archive, 2011, archived from the original on April 18, 2016 ; accessed on May 4, 2021 .  
3. ↑ ^{a b c} Carsten Scheele: 111 reasons to love snooker . Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-86265-607-3 , pp. 102 f .
4. ↑ Mark Selby shocks Ronnie O'Sullivan at Masters final ( English ) In: bbc.co.uk . BBC Sports. January 18, 2010. Retrieved July 12, 2012.
5. ↑ Snooker: World Champion Mark Selby wins Masters in the Tempodrom
6. ↑ Daniel Meuren: The wonderful Leicester double. In: faz.net . May 2, 2016, Retrieved May 3, 2016 . 
7. ↑ Third title for “Jester from Leicester” on orf.at
8. ↑ Dave Owen: Mark Selby describes bizarre accident that nearly led to him losing his big toe. The Jester from Leicester missed the start of the snooker season. In: Leicester Mercury. July 12, 2017, accessed November 5, 2017 .  
9. ↑ ^{a b c} Carsten Scheele: The vampire who sucks everything. Süddeutsche Zeitung , May 4, 2021, accessed on May 4, 2021 (English).  
10. ↑ Snooker World Cup 2021: The finalists Mark Selby and Shaun Murphy are looked after by the same trainer. May 3, 2021, accessed May 4, 2021 . 
11. ↑ Bertram Job: The Triumph of the Villain. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , May 4, 2021, accessed on May 4, 2021 (English).