England’s Mark Selby excited after beating Stephen Lee at 2012 Masters
A scintillating performance from World Number One, England’s Mark Selby in the first round has dragged him into the quarter-final stage of 2012 Masters. The event is now into the final stages after some excellent snooker show at the Alexandra Palace in Stock.
The former Masters tournament winner is aiming to make an impact at the conclusion of his run.
The Leicester potter clinched his first-round clash against Stephen Lee with a convincing score line of 6-4 and cruised his way into the quarter-final match against the former World Snooker Champion, Shaun Murphy, who defeated Martin Gould with a big margin
of four frames by 6-2.
Selby clinched an early lead of 4-0 after winning first four scrappy frames with impressive breaks of 66, 57 and 110. Despite tumbling four frames down, Lee bounced back instantly and reached 5-4 taking three straight frames. Selby managed to win the tenth
frame easily with 71-point knock. The 28-year-old is quite excited about his victory.
Speaking to World Snooker at the conclusion of his first match, Selby said, “I settled quite well and played well to go 4-0 in front. Then I just seemed to lose a bit of focus, maybe because I had quite a big lead. I probably should have won 6-1, but full
credit to Stephen, he started playing well and got more and more confidence. At 5-4 it could have gone either way.”
The Jester from Leicester added, “I was getting a little bit nervous so I was happy with the way I shut the match out. If I had lost that much I would have felt as if I'd chucked it away. I know I punched the table at the end but I did it with the bottom
half, not like Michael Holt who does it with his fist and breaks his hand!”
The Selby/Murphy quarter-final will be a thrilling encounter. Both players have played against each other in many tournaments and are aware of each other’s strengths. As far as the odds are concerned, they are stacked in favour of Selby because against Murphy,
his track record is quite impressive with seven wins against Murphy’s only one victory in nine matches.
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