2016 World Championship (the final) - Selby leads Ding after two sessions

13:30:00 Ramona Dragomir 2 Comments


Mark Selby is currently leading Ding Junhui 10-7 after playing two sessions of the 2016 Betfred World Championship final.

The cues-crossing has been a most peculiar one, as the first session Selby clearly stated his supremacy, ending it at 6-2 up, while the second one appeared to be a more balanced and tense snooker-affair.

It was with a 91 clearance that this year's World Championship final was starting, Selby being the one to break the ice, while the second frame quickly turned into an early classic drama, as "The Jester" was clinching it on the last black to go 2-0 up.

Top breaks of 76, 120, 70, 41 and 32 proved more than enough to assure Selby's dominance over the match, as he was now 6-0 in front.

Clearly nervous for playing in his first ever World Championship final, Ding missed a lot of balls and opportunities, but he did manage to close the first session by winning the remaining two frames with runs of 33, 35 and 41, in order to trail 6-2.

When the lads returned into the arena (just an hour later), Selby was yet again the first one in and extended his lead at 7-2 up.


But Master Yoda (aka. Terry Griffiths worked his magic during the break) and so Ding started to regain some form after hitting breaks of 76, 103 and 89 to win three frames in a row and enter into the mid-session interval 7-5 down.

The 13th frame bared Selby's signature, but Ding fought back with a beautiful 86 break to reduce the gap at just two points.

The following frame was the longest frame of the match (around 65 minutes) but Ding succeeded into winning it to go just one behind his opponent, 8-7.

Mark Selby anticipated his opponent's next move (which was clearly to make a complete comeback) and made the most of the last two frames, although in all honestly a lot of misses were recorded (from both parties), to end the second session 10-7 up.

The lads will return, hopefully fresh and ready for the kill, from 2pm (UK time).

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

If you put aside the time Dings nerves dominated proceedings to Selby 6-0, the score since then is 7-4 to Ding. With that momentum he should go on to win, yet Selby is still 1-3 fav with the bookies. Your thoughts on who is going to win?

It's a tough call to be honest. Ding looks more composed than before and he really, really wants to win this. However, I can't overlook Selby's experience when the pressure kicks in.

I think we'll just have to wait and see. :-P