Mark Selby versus Jimmy Robertson – 2011 Betfred.com World Snooker Championship Preview
Mark Selby and Jimmy Robertson will be one-on-one in the opening round of the 2011 Betfred.com World Snooker Championship, which is going to be staged from 16 April to 3 May at the Crucible Theatre, Sheffield, England.
The Jester from Leicester, Mark Selby, should be a red hot favourite for this match. Both players have faced each other two times before in any professional tournament and both their meeting came during this season. Their first clash was at the quarter-final
stage of PTC2 event held at Sheffield and the second clash was during the EPTC3 event in Russelsheim. Robertson in these both meeting was trashed by Selby with frame scores of 4-2 and 4-0, respectively.
As far as their Crucible history is concerned the world number four Selby has appeared six times before and this will be his seventh time. Moreover he also reached the final in the 2007 world champion before losing out to John Higgins by a frame score of
18-13. He also reached the semi-final last year where he lost to Graeme Dott by a frame score of 17-14.
Meanwhile the world number sixty-one Robertson is going to participate for the first time. So it can be said Selby will have an advantage of his experience of playing at the home of snooker.
The 27-year-old Selby also has played very well in this season. He started this season in a straightforward fashion by winning the second PTC event in Sheffield and finished second, overall on the Order of Merit. He also clinched the Sangsom 6-Red World
Championship. He also made it to the semi-finals in the season’s first ranking event, Shanghai Masters. Selby suffered some early defeats against Barry Hawkins and Stephen Maguire. He bounced back in the German Masters once again and shrugged off the likes
of Nigel Bond, Stephen Hendry, Ding Junhui and Graeme Dott to reach the final which he eventually lost to Mark Williams. He also made an accomplishing performance in the Newport to reach the semi-finals before going down to Stephen Maguire.
The other two events of this season PTC Grand Finals and China Open, Selby made it to the semi-final and the final respectively.
Twenty-four-year-old Robertson on the other hand has had a strange season thus far. He started off well with the PTC event, where he gathered 5,320 ranking points. He suffered opening round defeats against James McBain, Simon Bedford and James Wattana in
the Shanghai Masters qualifiers, World Open and UK Championship respectively. His best performance came in the German Masters and during the qualifying round for the World Championship, as he outplayed the likes of Liam Highfield, Jimmy White, Xiao Guodong,
Tony Drago and former 1997 world champion Ken Doherty.
Keeping the odds in mind, Selby has more chance to secure a place in the last-16. However, Robertson’s being an under-dog might change the things.
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