Mark Selby sets up Shaun Murphy clash after beating Michael Holt in Round 2: 2012 World Open
World Number one, England’s Mark Selby accomplished another success in the 2012 World Open snooker tournament at the Haikou Stadium arena after he ousted compatriot Michael Holt by the score line of 5-3 to surge into the quarter-finals against Shaun Murphy.
The Leicester potter is on top of his game in this event as he showed no mercy in his previous match against China’s Lu Ning and defeated him by 5-3. Selby has been a convincing potter throughout the current season. Despite the fact that he was not able
to win any major snooker title this season, he put up some excellent snooker skills in minor ranking events to retain his number one spot.
Selby’s noticeable wins in the 2011-12 Snooker Season are the 2011 Wuxi Classic, 2011 Shanghai Masters and a couple of Players Tour Championship (PTC) events. However, he did reach the final of some major events including the 2012 Welsh Open and two Championship
League Snooker tournaments.
He began his run in the 2012 World Open snooker event with a marvellous win over the Chinese and set up a second-round contest with Holt. He opened the game with a cracking 117 break but slowed down after that and Holt pocketed a 73 and 72 to lead 1-2. The
Jester from Leicester shot another century knock to pull level at 2-2 to end the first session.
Holt grabbed the fifth frame to lead 2-3 again but after that he failed to maintain that lead and Selby, with three consecutive frame hits, placed himself in the quarter-final line up against Shaun Murphy.
In his post match interview with the World Snooker, Selby said, “Overall it was a decent game and the first four frames were very good but after the interval it got a bit scrappy but I'm happy to have won the match.”
The 28-year-old added, “I wore the glove as it's very sticky out there and all players were struggling with the humidity so I gave myself a little advantage as I could feel the cue moving through my hand better. If I keep playing well I've got a chance but
there's still a lot of good players left in the competition.”
The Selby-Murphy quarter-final encounter will definitely be worth watching as both players have played each other many times and know each other’s strengths.
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