Selby savours back-to-back majors
Mark Selby was thrilled to clinch his third Betfair Masters title and claim back-to-back major victories after a neck injury left him fearing for his career.
The 29-year-old, winner in 2008 and 2010, claimed a 10-6 victory over defending champion Neil Robertson at Alexandra Palace in London to add the Masters title and the £175,000 first prize to last month's UK Championship crown.
"It's just unbelievable at the moment," Selby said. "At one stage I didn't know whether I was going to be playing again and now I'm sitting here after winning the UK Championship in December and the Masters in January."
He went on: "The majority of the match I was really happy with the way I played.
"Going into today's game I knew I had to play a lot better and score better and be a lot more attacking. I seemed to do that in the first session, to go 5-1 in front. Neil showed what a class player he is to come back to 5-3.
"Tonight it was the same again, how I started off this morning. I'm really happy."
In the best-of-19 final, Australian top-seed Robertson responded from 8-3 down by taking three successive frames.
World number one Selby, though, was able to hold off the fightback and see out victory to join five others who had won the tournament three times or more.
Selby, whose only century break of the tournament came in the third frame of the final, added: "This afternoon I felt great, I felt fresh. Tonight I felt it catching up with me, but thankfully I gave myself a good enough lead to have something to mess about with.
"To come back to 8-6 he was more or less back in the game and the next frame was huge, 8-7 or 9-6 and I managed to nick it and fall over the line, really."
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