Selby withstands late Allen fightback to reach sixth Worlds final

Mark Selby has won 22 ranking titles

Mark Selby withstood a melodramatic Mark Allen fightback to triumph a late-night decorativeness 17-15 arsenic helium reached his sixth World Championship final.

He past pulled wide with 3 fractional centuries and a fantastic 103 to reel disconnected 5 frames connected the trot.

But Allen remarkably past took the adjacent 5 to get backmost to 16-15 earlier the Englishman sealed his win.

Selby, a 22-time ranking victor and nine-time Triple Crown champion, volition present look Belgium's Luca Brecel successful a best-of-35 brushwood which begins connected Sunday.

But it volition spell down arsenic a missed accidental for Allen, who has had to hold 14 years for his 2nd quality successful the past 4 and had aspirations of his ain to implicit a vocation Triple Crown.

The disappointment for the Northern Irishman - who won the Masters successful 2018 and the UK Championship earlier this run - was that helium simply could not summation immoderate momentum erstwhile play initially resumed successful the evening having dug heavy astatine 9-6 and 10-7 down successful the greeting to forestall Selby from stretching his advantage.

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A fig of lengthy tactical exchanges featured passim a fiercely contested matter betwixt players ranked 2nd and 3rd successful the satellite and by the clip Selby went 16-10 up they looked to person taken their toll connected Allen.

But with Selby connected the brink of triumph Allen launched a superb betterment that began with runs of 39 and 43.

Free of immoderate unit and seemingly nary longer constrained by Selby's superb safety, helium followed up with a 48, his largest interruption of the evening, and with hostility rising wrong the auditorium Allen past edged the 29th and 30th frames to trim the arrears to 16-14.

It was acold from error-free snooker but that lone served to adhd to the play arsenic Allen failed to chopped the yellowish into the mediate and Selby missed a bully accidental to dispatch the brown.

The Englishman rattled the jaws with a cookware connected the past reddish successful the 31st framework but yet mustered a interruption of 64 and enactment the lucifer shot into close middle, earlier looking up to the balcony with a look of evident relief.

Analysis - Selby is the 'ultimate boa constrictor'

Six-time satellite champion Steve Davis connected BBC Two

Mark Selby is the eventual boa constrictor. He tin perfectly nail you to that bottommost cushion. He doesn't marque galore mistakes, you don't get galore casual chances. He doesn't miss immoderate casual balls and erstwhile helium plays harmless it is truthful bully you are conscionable playing a containing information back. You can't adjacent play an attacking safety.

A batch of radical don't similar watching it but arsenic a subordinate we respect it to the nth degree. It is conscionable unthinkable to watch. What benignant of subordinate tin interruption escaped of it? He's successful the final.

2005 satellite champion Shaun Murphy

Mark Selby doesn't suffer galore of these matches retired determination connected the single-table acceptable up. This is what helium does and the matches wherever helium links it with fast-flowing interruption building, everyone raves astir it. He is the eventual match-player doing what helium does best.

Mark Allen made an unthinkable lucifer of it. He volition beryllium devastated by that loss. It looked similar for each the satellite that we would beryllium going to a final-frame decider but Mark Selby, erstwhile helium needed it, recovered something.

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