2015 World Championship (Day 3) - Hawkins passes Selt's test

The third day here at the Crucible Theatre from Sheffield has had the best start that could possibly have, as Barry Hawkins and Matthew Selt resumed their match started on Sunday.

Now, for those of you who read my blog the fact that Hawkins had a pretty cool advantage of 7-2 over his opponent after the first session is no surprise, but what till you hear what happened next, for the lads went on hand-in-hand until the last frame.

Matthew started the second and last session by collecting the first two frames with a top break of 50, but Hawkins' response came quick enough as he fired in breaks of 79 and 88 to go just one away from victory, 9-4.

However, after the mid-session interval things got out of hand for the Hawk, as a resurrected Matthew Selt started his comeback. And what a comeback this was going to be!

Breaks of 61, 51, 102, 109 and 94 were sure to force the decider and let his opponent almost rotting in his chair. It was all too much for poor Barry who started missing easy shots and got froze to watch Selt in action.

Still, the man who reached the final of the 2013 World Championship still had a couple of aces up his sleeve and with runs of 32 and 43 managed to close the deal and win a nervy decider by 10-9.

This is actually the third important comeback of the tournament, in a match that sees all its frames being played.

And as his predecessors (Kurt Maflin who recovered from a 8-4 deficit in front of Selby and Stephen Maguire who came back from being led 9-5 by his fellow country-man Ants McGill) Matthew Selt failed to close the deal that he worked so hard for.

But he deserves every praise in the book because he proved just how dangerous he can be and how much will and talent lies in him.

The day continues with another match that ended its first session on a 7-2 scoreline, Neil Robertson going into the last session with a comfortable advantage over Jamie Jones. But nothing is for sure, is it?