UK Championship 2012 - Murphy and Selby to play final game

Murphy comes back for victory

The beautiful UK Championship madness started on December 1^st and after being through so many tense matches and unbelievable scorelines, it's time to play the grand final.

Standing with their head up high are Shaun Murphy, who managed to obtain a fabulous victory of 9-8 over Ali Carter, and Mark Selby who easily beat Mark Davis 9-4.

It is said that sometimes, the semis carry a lot more drama and tension than the final and for the Murphy v Carter snooker encounter, this rule applies without any doubt.

Clearly in the form of his lifetime, Carter was in the position of leading Shaun 8-4, with only one more frame needed to book himself a place in today's final. But the "Magician" had other plans in mind.

The match started on a pretty balanced note, at least up until 2-2. However, after that Carter used a great 101 break to fly two points ahead, while Murphy could only respond with runs of 34 and 49 to pull back a frame.

The first session ended with Ali's 79 break that gave him full control of the match, this year's World Championship runner-up leading 5-3.

As the lads returned into the arena, Carter didn't lose any time and fired in breaks of 79 and 80 to go just one step away from the finish-line.

It was in that very moment, when the "Magician's" force unleashed itself under the form of breaks like 59, 76, 49, 105 and 78 to perform probably the most unthinkable comeback of this tournament. The scoreline was now 8-8.

Selby regains his world number one position

Shocked, but still eager to win Carter started the decider and got the run of the balls pretty quickly. Sadly for him though, he broke off at 32 after missing a red with the rest, Murphy coming to the table to end the match with runs of 39 and 29 for a great 9-8 victory and a well-deserved place in the final.

Less spectacular, but quite tense here and there, the match featuring Mark Selby and Mark Davis had a pretty clear result, 9-4, result that guarantees Selby's to get his world number one position back.

With just a top break of 121, Selby took off to a 3-0 lead, before Davis responded with a 76 to win his first frame of the day.

As the first session of the match developed Davis didn't manage to win more than one frame (which was captured with a great 80 clearance, it must be said), while Selby hit in runs of 42, 81 and 51 to go 6-2 up.

At returning into the arena, things didn't seem to change must, Selby continuing to cruise towards victory with runs of 64, 76 and 41, to which his opponent was unable to address more than a 50 break during frame 10 and won a scrappy affair two frames later. Final scoreline 9-4.

And so Shaun Murphy and Mark Selby are seeing their names in shiny letters today, as the 35^th edition of the UK Championship is waiting for a new champion to lift that beautiful trophy.

Be sure to watch the lads in action from 2:15pm (first session) and from 10pm (the last session) – UK time.