Mark Selby v Shaun Murphy: World Snooker Championship final – live!

Individual sports are a strange affair, structured around a few big events every year – or, when it comes to snooker and darts, one big event – that exist, in theory, to tell us the identity of the best player in the world. The formula – predicated on an elongated format that in theory should favour the most skilled not the most streaky – worked pretty well in the 80s and 90s, when Eric Bristow, Phil Taylor, Steve Davis and Stephen Hendry were in their pomp, and Taylor carried it on through the, er, oughts. But since then, things have changed.

Probably, what happened is that the overall standard improved – a common consequence of a dominant champion – so that the world championships now tend to tell us the identity of the best player in world over the two-and-a-bit-week period in which the world championships happen. It’s not tidy, but it’s exciting – since 1996, when Hendry won the last of his ridiculous five in a row, the title has been retained just twice – by Ronnie O’Sullivan in 2012 and 2013, and by Mark Selby in 2016 and 2017. By way of comparison, six different players have won the last six world titles, with only Michael van Gerwen claiming more that one.

As I said, though, individual sports a strange, because Judd Trump clattered John Higgins two years ago in one of the greatest final performances ever seen, in anything, the assumption was that we were witnessing the first act of an era. Which we were, because he’s been not far off unbeatable in the shorter forms since then, making a mockery of the notion that quality needs quantity to out itself … and yet he’s not even made the final the last two years, out-fought by brilliant players playing brilliantly.

So tonight won’t necessarily tell us who’s the current number one, but it will tell us something else. Shaun Murphy has won the biggie once before, as a qualifier in 2005, and as a triple-crown champ, another one of these would put him into the stratosphere. Mark Selby, on the other hand, currently competes for the fifth spot in the list of the greatest of the modern era – Davis, Hendry, O’Sullivan and John Higgins are unarguables – but a fourth world title would end that discussion for the next bit.

It’s hard to look beyond Selby, who was great last night and competes like a mule with a hangover. But Murphy is a terrific potter with enough self-belief to fire an entire village, so all being well we’re set for a monstrous day of drama. There is absolutely nothing like it. Yes!

source: theguardian.com