Inspired, fist-pumping Shaun Murphy storms into Crucible final, Mark Selby wears down Stuart Bingham

Kyren Wilson was unhappy with Murphy's ebullient celebrations

Sat, 01 May, 2021 - 21:06

Shaun Murphy reeled off eight frames in a row to come from six frames down to beat Kyren Wilson 17-12 in the World Snooker Championship semi-final.

The Englishman, who lives in Dublin, trailed 10-4 at one stage in the match, but clawed his way back to 12-12 ahead of Saturday evening's conclusion.

And the 2005 champion finished the job with near-faultless snooker, taking the first five frames of this evening's session to progress to the decider for the first time since 2015.

An opening 78 was enough to put him in front for the first time since he won the opening frame of the match, and an unfortunate in-off from Wilson in the next enabled Murphy to go further in front with a knock of 91.

Wilson paid a heavy price for a simple missed black in the next as Murphy responded with a 117 to go 15-12 up, then 77 to move one frame from victory at the mid-session interval.

After an extended period of safety play, Murphy seized his first opportunity with a break of 58 which would ultimately prove enough to wrap up a stunning win.

"No one was more shocked than me," he told the BBC afterwards. "I've been terrible here the last few years in that arena."

Murphy fist-pumped emotionally several times as he completed his comeback, to the annoyance of his opponent.

"It looks a bit silly. It's not for me," Wilson remarked.

"Shaun's got to do what's he got to do to get to me, I suppose.

"I'm not going to say that did. But fair play to him, he's used his experience and he's a great champion.

"He's obviously got on a roll and once he does that, he's very hard to stop."

Murphy insisted his demonstrative celebrations were just an indication of how much the match meant to him.

Earlier this morning, he tweeted: "Today marks the biggest day in my snooker life for six years. Will I be waking up tomorrow as a @Betfred World Snooker Championship finalist, or will I have to hunt down a PCR test so I can go home to Dublin. Let’s find out."

And after completing the victory, he said: "It means so much to all of us. We talk about players who come here and haven't won and they are chasing it.

"They are dedicating their lives to winning that particular trophy. It means everything to us.

"The fist-pumps, I personally don't have a problem with it. I think we need that in sport. I don't think there's anything wrong with it.,

"I didn't feel I was disrespectful to Kyren in any way."

Mark Selby then turned around a 13-11 overnight deficit to complete a 17-15 win over Stuart Bingham.

The slow pace of play meant the pair couldn't finish the match in the allotted time for their afternoon session.

But tonight Selby returned to claim the one frame he required to book his place in the final.

But it proved far from straight-forward, with both players spurning fine chances before it boiled down to an extended safety battle on the colours.

There was time for one final twist as Bingham failed five times to get out of a tough snooker on the green, before eventually leaving Selby the chance to clear the required colours and seal a 17-15 victory.

Bingham was unimpressed with some of Selby's tactics during the match. On Friday, referee Ben Williams warned the 'Jester from Leicester' about his slow play after one long period of deliberation.

Bingham said: “It was grueling to play in. I want to play a free-flowing game, but you have to question how slow the play was sometimes. I don’t know if he does it on purpose.

“Maybe it was close to gamesmanship, one time he took three minutes and then just rolled the white into the balls.”

However, Selby countered by saying the players registered similar average shot times: “It was only one or two shots that were slow, there was one I had a brain freeze on Friday, but we had about the same average shot time so he can’t call me out for that.

“Overall Stuart played better and I was digging in for a lot of it."

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