By Elliott West
“I wish I was as good at his age. For me, he has the game to go on and win it. Here, to not be scoring and not be at your best, you have to scrap it out and he showed that.”
Mark Selby
Introduction
The Crucible Theatre is a cauldron of drama and in its 45 years of hosting the World Championship has produced many epic matches. Last night was no exception, as Tyson Fury fought it out with Dillian Whyte in the boxing ring at Wembley, two snooker heavyweights were doing battle on the snooker stage to earn a place in the quarter-finals. The defending world champion, Mark Selby was up against the 22-year-old Chinese player, Yan Bingtao, the ultimate tactician against a player who can be brilliant but who was still licking his wounds from his crushing 9-0 defeat against his good friend Zhao Xintong in the German Masters final. A bookmaker would heavily back Selby in this match but by the end of it, he would be crying into his betting slips.
The Battle
Resuming on Saturday morning at 4-4, this match hung firmly in the balance with both players not phased by the prospect of defeat. However this would be just the tip of this snooker iceberg and by the end of the session, Yan was leading the match 9-7. What followed in the evening conclusion will go down in the Snooker Almanac as an ultimate classic, a war of attrition and one where one player was left shell shocked and battered and the other walking tall and proud.
In the final session, Yan Bingtao, the player nicknamed ‘The Tiger’, matched his opponent in every element of his game. Calm and composed, Yan wielded an iron fist that sought out Mark’s weaknesses like a heat guided missile. I personally don’t think that Selby put in enough hours of practice for this world championship and ultimately the power of snooker found him out in a relentless opponent.
Yan was frankly nerveless and produced the best snooker that I have seen play since winning the 2021 Masters when he beat John Higgins 10-8. Bingtao took the first two frames of the evening session to extend his lead to 11-7 but was pegged back by a resurgent Selby to within one frame with consecutive breaks of 86, 117 and 88. This set up the crucial 22nd frame which Yan finally won by squeezing the black into the middle pocket.
This was the longest frame of the match and went on for a staggering 85 minutes and 22 seconds, making it the longest ever frame in Crucible history. It had everything in it that a snooker fan could dream of and was like watching one of your children opening a present at Christmas. It continued brilliant safety play, superb potting and balls that refused to enter the almost magnetic pockets. By the end of the frame, Selby looked like a broken man, slumped in his chair and averting his eyes from his surroundings. The match was quickly escaping his grasp and the car park was calling him.
In the end, Selby couldn’t pick himself up from the ground and in the crucial frame with a 63-49 scoreline, it was Yan who turned his game up to supersonic speed and produced a divine 112 break to win the match 13-10. Mark congratulated his opponent and walked into the snooker shadows whilst his Chinese victor punched the air and got ready for a frenzy of media interviews. The Tiger tamed The Jester.
Afterthoughts
Perhaps people who read this piece may think I am being hypercritical of Mark Selby’s performance but that is not the case. He played well in this match but just couldn’t outwit his opponent. I do think that Mark’s mental health did have an impact but his counselling is clearly working and he is in a better headspace than he was several months ago. I just think his lack of preparation for this match got found out and Bingtao was able to outscore him in every department. Yan had an ice-cold composure even when the drama of this ultimate battle was at its height. He just got in with and was determined to reach his goal of closing out the match, a point made crystal clear in his final 112 winning break of the match.
Yan Bingtao faces another tough battle in his quarter-final draw with Mark Williams. Mark obliterated his last opponent, his good friend, the man he calls his fourth son and practice partner, Jackson Page 13-3. Despite this ultimate threat, Yan gets a little break before he has to play the Welshman and still looks calm and composed, treating Williams as just another opponent he has to play in his Crucible crusade.
