Matthew Selt’s long wait is over.
Thirteen years after turning pro, the Englishman won the Indian Open, his maiden world-ranking snooker title defeating China’s 21-year-old Lyu Haotian, who was also playing his maiden ranking final, 5-3 in the title-decider.
After winning the first two frames, World No. 51 Selt watched as Haotian, one of the tournament’s youngest players here, produced a break of 115 to clinch the next frame. But Selt also came up with a century break in the sixth to level the scores at 3-all.
The seventh one was tight and, leading 47-35, Selt missed a red but minutes later, Haotian missed a black to hand back the advantage to the Englishman.
Higgins stunned
Earlier, despite a quarterfinal against China’s Lu Ning (Chn) that went past 1 a.m., Selt kept calm and shocked defending champion John Higgins, the World No. 4, 4-2 in the semifinal.
“I didn’t even know what time that match got over. I didn’t sleep until 5.20 this morning,” said Selt about the match that slipped into the early hours of Sunday.
But despite the excitement within, he was all calm against Higgins, taking the first frame with a century break. “I missed the brown to go 3-1 up and luckily he missed the pink. Even then, 3-1 up, you don’t know if you are going to get a chance in the next frame,” said Selt.
“I tried to stay as calm as I could and got my chance and I took it.”
Meanwhile China’s Lyu Haotian also took a big step in his promising career as he defeated England’s Anthony Hamilton 4-2 and entered his maiden ranking final.
The results: Final (best-of-nine): Matthew Selt (Eng) bt Lyu Haotian (Chn) 57-48, 89 (84)-6, 0-115 (115), 12-78 (56), 21-72 (66), 102 (102)-0, 67-49; 96 (72)-41.
Semifinals: Matthew Selt (Eng) bt John Higgins (Sco) 4-2 (103 (103)-0, 41-66, 58-5, 62-61, 5-105, 107-8); Lyu Haotian (Chn) bt Anthony Hamilton (Eng) 4-2 (0-85, 30-62, 69-17, 100-5, 83-22, 68-4).
