It was a predictably hard-fought final in Wuxi but Mark Selby has ended his recent run of final defeats with a 9-7 victory against Ali Carter to win the Wuxi Classic this afternoon. The action does not stop there however as Mark and Ali will now team up for the 2011 World Cup which starts tomorrow over in Bangkok…
While the final saw just one century break made between the two, there were a number of other sizeable contributions during the match as Selby hit runs of 100, 92, 89 and 66 while Carter had runs of 90 and 72 during the morning session which saw the two finish all-square at 4-4.
The evening session began in much the same way as the morning session had with Selby taking three of the first four frames to lead 7-5 before he added the next to leave himself three clear with a possible four to play. At this stage the outcome of the match did not appear to be in doubt but to his credit Ali took the next two to reduce the deficit to a single frame and bring himself right back into contention.
He was not though to pot another ball from there as Mark won the match in the 16th frame with two scoring visits to win his first title since the Six-red World Championship last year and his first 15-red event success since the PTC2 event in Sheffield.
While not a major ranking event tournament, this will hopefully be a confidence-boosting win for Mark who lost in the finals of both the German Masters and China Open last season and has for many not quite won as many titles as his standing in the game during the last few seasons might suggest he should. Will this change in 2011/12 as the bigger tournaments come around? It will be interesting to see.
World Cup
As explained in the title however, the action now moves on to Bangkok as the 2011 World Cup begins tomorrow at 7am BST live on Eurosport.
As far as information is concerned, you can find the TV schedule for the event here on Eurosport while the best place to view the draw and latest results will as ever be the constantly updated WWWSnooker site here.
Who will win the event. With the format in operation it is tough to say although my views have probably not changed a great deal since I first looked at the event a few weeks ago here.
Finally you can also see full details of the format and the order of play here at World Snooker (pdf).