Mark Selby and Ronnie O'Sullivan will face each other in yet another major final after making it down to the last two in York.
Selby was the first man into the UK Championship final beating Shaun Murphy 6-2 in the afternoon. Murphy started off with a break of 99 and was feeling good at that point taking a 1-0 lead. Breaks of 55 and 83 put the World number one 2-1 ahead though and he took the fourth from under Murphy's nose on the colours to take a 3-1 mid-session interval lead. 57 from the Magician after the break got him back into the match at 3-2, but Selby made 58 to regain his two frame lead. The seventh frame was another tense one and again Murphy had his chances but Selby's tactical game was too good and he pinched the frame to lead 5-2 and 51 in the eighth frame sealed his place in a third UK final inside five years.
Ronnie O'Sullivan faced a much tighter match and his first real test of the tournament, having to come back from the brink and beat Marco Fu in a decider. O'Sullivan led 3-1 at the interval, despite a break of 80 from Fu in the second. 100 in the fifth kept Marco in the match at 3-2, but like the first semi-final O'Sullivan regained his two frame advantage with 58 in the sixth. Then it was time for Fu to go on a run as he levelled the match with breaks of 85 and 59 and then stole the ninth frame on the black to move 5-4 ahead and one away from victory. It was looking good when he was in the balls in frame ten, but one of the worst kicks you are likely to see cost Fu his first chance, and his reaction told you all you needed to know putting his hand over his face in disbelief. Another chance came, missing the green when looking to clear the colours for the match but his mind was already frazzled from the previous events of the frame and O'Sullivan punished him to force a decider. Fu did not get a chance in the final frame as O'Sullivan got in first and did what he does best, making a clinical break of 130 to claw himself out of trouble and clinch a 6-5 victory.
Sunday 4th December - Sessions at 1pm and 7pm
Mark Selby Vs Ronnie O'Sullivan
Getting to the final this week has been very easy for these two at times in this tournament, while in others they have faced rockier patches. Despite going to a decider in the semi-finals, Ronnie O'Sullivan has only dropped 10 frames in six matches while Mark Selby has still been very clinical dropping 14 frames in his six matches. We have really only seen O'Sullivan tested once and that could easily have gone against him last night versus Marco Fu, while Mark Selby could just have easily been beaten in the quarter-finals against John Higgins.
The last two meetings between the two produced victories for O'Sullivan in this years Welsh Open and Masters quarter-finals. The last final they played was the 2014 World Championship, won by Selby after O'Sullivan thrashed him in the 2014 Masters final. They both know what to expect from each other by now. Selby knows that if O'Sullivan could get off to a flier and run away with things today. Although, O'Sullivan knows just as well that know lead is safe against the current world number one.
It is such a tough match to call that it is not worth trying, but you would not expect in a match up of two great players for one to roll the other over comfortably but you never know. I expect it to be relatively close on the day as Selby has been scoring pretty well, meaning he has not had to rely solely on grinding players down and given that he is World Champion and International Champion, at the peak of his powers and confidence too you would imagine I think he could have the slightest of edges.
It has been a very entertaining week of snooker once again from the Barbican Centre in York, where the UK Championships will be held until at least 2018 after an announcement yesterday. The tour will move on though and three big draws should be released in the next 24 hours or so. First for the German Masters where the qualifiers begin in just two days on Tuesday morning and conclude on Friday when we will know the 32 making the trip to the Tempodrome in Berlin in February. Then starting on Monday 12th December is the third of the home nations series as the players head for a week at the Scottish Open. Whether the draw for the Masters will be made live on BBC during today's UK final remains to be seen, we now have the field and the seedings for all 16 players who will compete in the Masters at the Ally Pally in January (as Ronnie is guaranteed first seed as defending champion and Selby the second seed as the World Champion and world number one).
So busy times still lie ahead in the build-up to Christmas, but who will Christmas come early for on the snooker circuit?
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