Sunday 23rd November is not a day that Shaun Murphy will be forgetting in a hurry, and to be honest neither will a lot of snooker fans because the events of that day will live large in the memory for a long time to come. This was of course the day where my moment of the month for November was secured and it’s tough to know where to start when describing.
Firstly, it’s worth taking a trip back to the beginning of
October when Shaun won the third European Tour event of the season out in
Bulgaria on an emphatic weekend where Murphy played sublime snooker and beat
Martin Gould 4-2 in the final to take the Bulgarian Open title. That means that
going into the European Tour event four, the Ruhr Open, Shaun Murphy was one of
the men to watch.
Playing his first three matches on the Saturday Shaun
overcame Lu Ning, Michael Holt and David Gilbert to secure his place in the
Last 16 where he would play Joe Swail. After a 138 in frame two of that match
it was in frame three that one of the huge moments of the Sunday took place.
Murphy had a massive chance for a maximum having potted the 15 reds with 15
blacks and had gotten down to the blue before the mistake crept in and he quite
simply twitched the blue off of its spot to give up a brilliant 147 opportunity
and he went on to win the match 4-3 against Joe to set up a meeting in the
quarter-finals against Mark Williams.
The Magician wasn’t to wait long for his next maximum
chance, as in frame four of the quarter-final with Mark he again did the hard
work to pot the 15 reds with 15 blacks, but a small kick on the yellow left him
short on the green and trying to roll it in, he could only watch (and quite
possibly tear up) as the green just didn’t reach and maximum attempt number two
of the day went begging. At least he gave himself the opportunity to put
himself in the position again possibly, by beating Mark Williams 4-2 to reach
the semi-finals. Shaun was in desperate trouble early on in this match as he
found himself 3-0 down and staring at defeat with Judd looking in great form.
Breaks of 58 and 98 kept Shaun in the match though and put the pressure on
Trump who made an awful error on the pink to allow Shaun to clear and force a
deciding frame. Both players had chances in that decider and it was Murphy that
eventually took his to complete a magnificent turnaround winning all of the
last four frames to beat Judd Trump 4-3 and put himself into the Ruhr Open
final.
In the final Shaun met Robert Milkins with Shaun looking for
consecutive European Tour titles, while Milkins was looking for his first full
title as a professional. It was Murphy that dominated though from start to
finish, and it was in frame two that Murphy had the chance again to make the
snooker players dream of a 147. Having potted 14 reds and blacks, he was
looking for a good angle on the final red to the middle but he landed straight
on it and had no chance of obtaining ideal black ball position, so he chose to
roll it in and play the black with the cue ball above the blue spot. In
spectacular style though Murphy was somehow able to cut the black in and landed
on the yellow to the middle and there were no more mistakes this time as he
cleared to make his fourth professional maximum break and his third in 2014
alone, and the big fist pump from Shaun Murphy showed what that meant having
missed two golden chances earlier in the day, and breaks of 62 and 58 in the
next two frames made sure that Shaun Murphy beat Robert Milkins to finish a
crazy day in style with a 4-0 win giving him the Ruhr Open title, consecutive
European Tour titles and my moment of the month for November. It was a wonderful moment that had a happy ending eventually for Shaun Murphy, and tomorrow I will bring out my final moment of the month before deciding on my final list and announcing the winner.
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