Selby hangs on after marathon frame

Mark Selby kept his concentration to earn a semi-final showdown with crowd favourite Ronnie O’Sullivan at the Maplin UK Championship.

The Leicester player, last season’s 888.com World Championship runner-up, was pushed all the way by Hong Kong’s Marco Fu in their quarter-final clash at the Telford International Centre.

But having won the longest frame in televised snooker history, it was the world number 11 who progressed with a battling 9-7 victory.

“From 8-5 I didn’t have any great chances to win 9-5,” said Selby.

“But luckily I just managed to fall over the line. I’m chuffed to bits.

“I knew I was going to break some records, but that’s the type of record I don’t want to be breaking.”

The 16th and deciding frame lasted an energy-sapping 77 minutes – the previous longest televised frame came in the 2006 888.com World Championship final between Graeme Dott and Peter Ebdon that lasted a staggering 74 minutes.

“I knew he (Marco) had to win four straight frames, so I knew I was always going to get a chance,” added Selby.

“I was still quite relaxed until it looked like it was going to go 8-8, but I just managed to stay relaxed enough to get over the line.

“Marco’s a great player, even before he won the Grand Prix (this season). Now he’s got a title under his belt he was always going to be dangerous.

“I knew he was going to be full of confidence, so it’s a great win for me.”

The pair were deadlocked at 4-4 after the afternoon session of their best-of-17 frame tussle.

It was Selby who started the better with a superb 130 break. He followed that with a cool 97 break, which would have been a second successive century if he had not missed a difficult black.

Fu, winner of the Royal London Watches Grand Prix in Aberdeen this season, rallied and pocketed a break of 77 to make it 2-1.

Selby got in first in the next frame and took control with a break of 47, but it was Fu who levelled matters with a break of 44 and a frame-clinching clearance of 26.

Fu made it three frames in succession by clinching the next frame with a composed break of 52, only for Selby to square matters by winning a scrappy sixth frame which nearly lasted half an hour.

Selby got back on track with his second century of the match, his break of 101 enough for a 4-3 lead.

However, it was Fu who won the final frame of the session to leave the match finely-poised ahead of the evening resumption.

Selby started well in the evening and quickly reeled off three frames to lead 7-4 with breaks of 59, 49 and 65.

But back came Fu with a superb 132 break to stay in contention at 7-5.

Selby won the next with a break of 59, before Fu won the next two frames with breaks of 53 and 67 to trail by a frame.

The next frame – a marathon 77 minutes – but it was Selby who held on to win on points 76-41.

This year’s other semi-final will see former world champion Shaun Murphy take on new Northern Ireland Trophy champion Stephen Maguire, himself a UK winner in 2004.

O’Sullivan booked his place in the semi-finals of this year’s Maplin UK Championship with a convincing victory over Stoke’s Jamie Cope.

’The Rocket’ led 6-2 after the opening session of their quarter-final clash at the Telford International Centre.

And it was not long before the three-time UK winner won the three frames he needed for an impressive 9-2 victory and a place in the next round of this year’s £590,400 event.

In fact, it took the Chigwell professional just under 27 minutes to make sure of his place in the semis as he outscored his opponent by 233 points in the final three frames of the match.

“I was able to mount sustained pressure and force the openings and force my opponent to try and come out and win it,” said O’Sullivan.

“My break-building has been good this season, and the long-potting came together today as well.

“He’s (Jamie) a good player and one of the up-and-coming players. He’s got a good touch, he plays free-flowing snooker and he makes you think you’re going to be in for a good game.

“You try and raise our game a bit more. The crowd have been fantastic all week and everyone I seem to play seems to raise their game.

“You never expect a result like that, he could have quite easily done what I did to him. I enjoyed it out there, you have to make the most of it when you play like that.”