Mark Selby and Gary Wilson to contest Beijing finale

Mark Selby and Gary Wilson will play out the best-of-19 frames China Open final in Beijing after Selby won a brilliant match against Kurt Maflin while Gary Wilson overcame home favourite Ding Junhui in a classic encounter.

Selby's semi-final was the first and at 3-3 in his match with Maflin, Kurt had already made two centuries with one to Mark's name, but the seventh frame was a very nervy frame with the Norwegian leading until the colours, and after missing a chance on the black to the middle to force a re-spot, Selby finished the frame off to go 4-3 in front. That seemed to kill the game from there and when Mark followed up with a 106 to make it 5-3 the writing seemed to be on the wall as the world champion soon completed his win.

The second semi-final between Ding Junhui and Gary Wilson was certainly one that had more swings than a pendulum. After winning the opener with a 68, Wilson was dominated by Ding in the next three frames as the Chinese surged into a 3-1 mid-session interval lead. Gary took the first after the break with a run of 50, while Ding then didn't score a single point in frames 6,7 and 8 as contributions of 60, 68 and 70 put Wilson one away from his maiden full ranking event final at 5-3. Ding wasn't going to let him do it the easy way however, and he followed that up with breaks of 97 and 72 to force the deciding frame, but when Gary's chance came he took and a cool 72 booked his place in his first ever ranking final.

Semi-Final Results:

Gary Wilson 6-5 Ding Junhui
Mark Selby 6-3 Kurt Maflin

Final Preview:

Mark Selby Vs Gary Wilson - On paper once again this final looks like a bit of a miss-match with the World Champion and this seasons German Masters champion taking on a man who coming into this week had only made one full ranking event quarter-final in his career. However, that could've been said with Gary Wilson in a number of his matches he's had this week having to beat the likes of Liang Wenbo, Ricky Walden, Barry Hawkins and Ding Junhui just to get this far, and his scoring in doing so has been superb in every single match and he will need to shrug off any early maiden ranking final nerves, in order to continue taking his chances, winning frames in one visit to truly Mark under any pressure in this final.

Mark Selby may have not had to beat the same sort of names in getting to the final, as Gary Wilson has done, but whoever he has come up against he has played very well indeed. His opening round win against Mark Joyce saw him go off the boil in the middle after a good start and he finished the match off well eventually, but Selby did also have some neck troubles in the early week which would've been a huge worry after the severity of the neck problems he suffered this time 3 years ago. However, he was very clinical in then beating Elliot Slessor and David Gilbert pretty comfortably, before digging in again to come from never being ahead in the match, but also never being more than a frame behind, to beat Robert Milkins 5-4. Even today when he had Kurt Maflin coming at him with big breaks including two centuries, he hit back as true champions do with the big breaks of his own including two centuries himself, just showing that throughout this week he has been able to handle whatever has been thrown at him, whether the game has been heavy scoring and open, or scrappy and in need of one of his grinding "master of brinkmanship" displays. That just makes me believe that whatever Gary Wilson can throw at Mark Selby tomorrow in terms of big breaks, he simply doesn't have the same experience on the big stage that Mark Selby does over several years and big tournament wins, to deal with what Mark Selby will be able to come up with in response over the best-of-19 frames.


Prediction: 10-6 to Selby

Whatever the outcome is tomorrow though both guys have played brilliantly though as Mark looked for a good event here ahead of the defence of his World Championship, while Gary Wilson can be immensely proud of his run to his maiden ranking event final, which has now taken him up to 37th at least in terms of his seeding for the World Championships, while victory tomorrow would put him up to 22nd in the regard. The snooker played all week has just gone better and better as the rounds have gone on and the standard has been set here ahead of the World Championship Qualifiers and the main event itself, which I expect now to be up there with one of the best in the Championships long history.