2015 World Championship (the Final) - Brilliant Bingham crowned World Champion

Stuart Bingham beat Shaun Murphy 18-15 to win this year's Betfred.com World Championship trophy after a long and hard journey of 17 days in Sheffield to which you also must add his 20 years of playing professional snooker.

The tremendous cue action from the Crucible arena bares the name of a single man and that man is Stuart Bingham - the newly crowned King of the Crucible. 

The underdog, the player that many disregarded for years, the one who finally proved that "nice guys do win" as Steve Davis himself declared.

The final against the 2005 world champion Shaun Murphy started as a very balanced cues-crossing affair, the first session ending on a tight 4-4, but the second one was seeing the Smurf taking a tiny advantage of 9-8.

Still, Bingham managed to turn tables against his opponent during the third session (ended on 14-11), a session that dare I say, won him the match in one way or another.

As the lads returned for their final encounter, tension was in the air. Nothing seemed like before and every shot carried that extra baggage of ”this could be the one".

The opening frame was a scrappy affair, but it didn't matter for Murphy as runs of 33 and 28 were helping him start his comeback. Or maybe not?

Bingham responded with a great 102 to go 15-12 up, but once again Murphy pushed his luck with a brilliant 77 clearance to win back a frame and a 64 to go just one behind at the interval.

A top break of 42 was made responsible for making the scoreline go 15-15, but the next frame was proving an epic one, a genuine display of safety shots, snookers, bad misses, penalty points from Shaun to Stuart (about 36 to be more precise), bad luck and bottle.

After 64 minutes of hard work Bingham prevailed the test of the Crucible while a break of 59 in frame 32 was helping him go just one away from victory.

Murphy's concentration and long potting faded even more, Bingham closing the match with an 88 break for a tremendous and well-deserved victory.

The traditional punch in the air was performed at the end, as well as the warm hug received from a genuine sportsman who stood there and applauded his opponent. And it's not an easy task, especially when you've just lost.

An emotional Bingham received the trophy and posed with his family and friends, in the standing ovation of a amazing Crucible crowd. 

The champion said that this "unbelievable" victory "means everything to him" and ended with his trademark "winner, winner chicken dinner". 

I don't know why by Bingham's victory reminds me of the one Joe Johnson recorded back in 1986 in front of Steve Davis. A very nice player and person who no one believed could end up winning it, but proved everyone wrong.

This concludes our 17 magical days of Crucible drama and puts an end of another season of snooker. Needless to say how thrilling it has been and how much I've personally enjoyed sharing snooker with you all.

Here's for another season! Oh ... and congratulation to our new champion of the world - Stuart Bingham! I guess we'll be talking about the Crucible Curse in 12 month time ...