The World Championship’s great underachiever Ding Junhui is tackling the toughest nut to crack in snooker after Leicester’s Mark Selby came through a 17-15 winner against Hong Kong’s Marco Fu late Saturday.
Yesterday, Selby began his third World Championship final.
He lost out to John Higgins in 2007 but beat Ronnie O’Sullivan to swipe the trophy in 2014, and after squashing the prospect of an all-Asian final it will be Selby standing in the way of record-breaker Ding.
Having come through qualifying this year, after a drastic dip in form, Ding maintained his momentum with a 17-11 semi-final victory over Scottish veteran Alan McManus in which he made seven centuries, the first time that feat has been achieved at the Crucible Theatre.
Glasgow cueman McManus is confident Ding can carry off the title.
“He’s favourite in my eyes and it’ll take a good performance to beat him,” he said.
The famous arena was gripped by fresh drama and controversy as Selby and Fu battled it out in the evening session on Saturday.
Fu appeared to touch a red with his index finger early in the 27th frame when bridging to play a safety shot. Referee Brendan Moore spotted nothing amiss, and Fu showed no sign of having noticed he nudged the ball.
But replays indicated the ball moved and that was immediately spotted by commentator John Parrott, the 1991 world champion, who said on BBC Two: “That’s a foul there. The red definitely moved there.
“It’s not been called but that’s a foul. It’s his finger (that) moves the red. Referee’s missed it, so has the player.
“He moves it forward, touches the red, and it’s a foul. Bit surprised both of them missed it.”
Fu insisted he had no recollection of the incident where he looked to have brushed the red, saying: “I haven’t got a clue. My coach just told me that the commentators were saying I touched a red with my finger but I didn’t really feel it.”
Having resumed the evening session tied at 12-12, Selby found it a struggle to shake off Fu’s close attention, which was perhaps no surprise given how keenly fought the contest was.
The final frame of the day’s opening session between the pair had lasted a draining one hour, 16 minutes and 11 seconds. That made it the longest in tournament history.
Latest result (final – best-of-35): Selby leads Ding 8-5.