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Just over five hours until the final starts, so not much sleep for me tonight... :smile:
Both players are looking to win their first major title of the season here, so I expect them to put everything into it. But who is going to win?
There is not much between them on this week's form. They both struggled to get over the line in the semi-finals, and I guess they can both count themselves lucky to have won that final frame, because they certainly gave plenty of chances to their opponents. Selby couldn't string a decent break together since the first frame, which is unfortunately becoming quite common for him at the business end of tournaments. Murphy did have a good patch of scoring in the middle of the match, but he probably needs a longer one in the final. He has been winning the close frames all week, often with a bit of luck, so maybe he will start feeling like he is destined to win this tournament.
Some of their previous meetings were quite disappointing, with one player playing fairly poorly, if not both. I guess the 2012 UK final is the best example. I think Selby probably has a slight psychological advantage, having beaten Murphy in most of their matches over the last two seasons, including that 6-1 thrashing at the Masters in January. He is tough to beat in the scrappy, low-quality stuff, so Murphy will probably be hoping for an open, attacking game. Robertson found himself 5-1 down to Selby in the UK final when it went scrappy, but then turned it around when he got into a scoring rhythm, and I think Murphy would do well to keep that in mind today.
It's a best-of-19 match, so plenty of time for the momentum to switch a couple of times. For some reason I am not very optimistic about this match, but hopefully I am wrong and we get some high-quality snooker or at least a close match, or preferably both. Ultimately I think Murphy's title drought could be his biggest problem here, because he hasn't really won a tournament of this type since 2008, so he might be a little rusty. He is also probably the highest-profile player to have never won a ranking event in China. Selby hasn't really won anything big for over a year either, but some of his titles are still quite fresh in the memory, and he has certainly competed in as many of these types of finals as anyone in recent times. I think he could win this 10-6. :smile:
Both players are looking to win their first major title of the season here, so I expect them to put everything into it. But who is going to win?
There is not much between them on this week's form. They both struggled to get over the line in the semi-finals, and I guess they can both count themselves lucky to have won that final frame, because they certainly gave plenty of chances to their opponents. Selby couldn't string a decent break together since the first frame, which is unfortunately becoming quite common for him at the business end of tournaments. Murphy did have a good patch of scoring in the middle of the match, but he probably needs a longer one in the final. He has been winning the close frames all week, often with a bit of luck, so maybe he will start feeling like he is destined to win this tournament.
Some of their previous meetings were quite disappointing, with one player playing fairly poorly, if not both. I guess the 2012 UK final is the best example. I think Selby probably has a slight psychological advantage, having beaten Murphy in most of their matches over the last two seasons, including that 6-1 thrashing at the Masters in January. He is tough to beat in the scrappy, low-quality stuff, so Murphy will probably be hoping for an open, attacking game. Robertson found himself 5-1 down to Selby in the UK final when it went scrappy, but then turned it around when he got into a scoring rhythm, and I think Murphy would do well to keep that in mind today.
It's a best-of-19 match, so plenty of time for the momentum to switch a couple of times. For some reason I am not very optimistic about this match, but hopefully I am wrong and we get some high-quality snooker or at least a close match, or preferably both. Ultimately I think Murphy's title drought could be his biggest problem here, because he hasn't really won a tournament of this type since 2008, so he might be a little rusty. He is also probably the highest-profile player to have never won a ranking event in China. Selby hasn't really won anything big for over a year either, but some of his titles are still quite fresh in the memory, and he has certainly competed in as many of these types of finals as anyone in recent times. I think he could win this 10-6. :smile:
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