Mark Selby speaks out on form ahead of ‘ultimate test’ at World Championship

Worryingly for everyone else, Mark Selby is looking in good form (Picture: Getty Images)

Mark Selby is hitting his stride nicely as he approaches the World Championship, but feels form is irrelevant ahead of the ‘ultimate test’ at the Crucible.

The Jester from Leicester hammered Neil Robertson 10-1 in the Tour Championship quarter-finals on Thursday, following up on a 10-6 defeat of Si Jiahui in his opening round.

The 41-year-old has already had a fine season, winning the British Open, Welsh Open and Championship League Invitational, but there could still be more glory to come.

He has a semi-final in Manchester coming up against Ding Junhui and whatever happens over the rest of the Tour Championship he will go to Sheffield as one of the favourites to win a fifth world title.

Selby is delighted to be playing well but will not read too much into it ahead of Sheffield, as he has experienced all sorts of form ahead of a Crucible campaign and results have significantly varied.

‘I’ve had seasons where I’ve had a poor season going into the Crucible and gone on there and done well,’ said Selby.

‘Then I’ve had other seasons where I’ve gone there absolutely flying, full of confidence and you lose in the last 16 or something.

Selby is typically downplaying his impressive form (Picture: Getty Images)

‘It’s one of them tournaments where you can’t try and prepare different to any other tournament, it’s the ultimate test. Try your best and if it’s good enough, great.’

Selby is keeping his feet firmly on the ground despite the resounding win over Robertson, which saw him knock in breaks of 124, 105, 86, 69, 68, 65 and 51.

‘I felt like I played ok yesterday, the first few frames were a bit scrappy, overall the whole of the match I played ok,’ he said.

‘7-1 flattered me a little bit. When you go out there with a 7-1 lead you can relax a little more and there’s no coincidence I finished off how I did.’

Selby meets Ding Junhui in the Manchester semis (Picture: Getty Images)

The Tour Championship is the climax of the three-event series including the World Grand Prix and Players Championship.

Surprisingly Selby is yet to win any of those tournaments but would love to get one on his CV to take his ranking title tally to 25.

‘They’re tough to win. The players that are in it on the one-year list are 32, 16, 12, so they’re tough to win,’ he said.

‘There’s no reason why I’ve not won one. I’ve won one ITV event, the British Open which sort of got the monkey off my back of all the pundits saying I’ve still not won one. It’d be nice to tick one of these off as well.’

Ding Junhui has been in impressive form as well this week, beating Mark Williams 10-3 and then world champion Kyren Wilson 10-5

The 38-year-old made breaks of 116, 102, 82, 78, 78, 63, 56 and 52 against Williams as he bounced back from a slow start to win seven frames on the spin.

He then started the match against Wilson in similar style, taking a 7-1 lead with breaks of 126, 80, 80, 76, 73 and 59.

Selby and Ding now meet for the first time since 2020 when the Englishman beat the Chinese 5-1 at the European Masters.

‘It’s strange. You get waves like that where you get some players where you play them a lot over a period of time and others where you don’t play for a little while and Ding seems to be one of them,’ said Selby.

‘It’s going to be a tough game. Ding’s playing great stuff again.’