In an amazing match that featured five century breaks and a further 7 breaks over 50, Ding Junhui lifted the 5th ranking event title of his career with a 9-6 victory over World Number 1 Mark Selby.

The 24-year-old Chinese has had a slow start to this campaign and hadn’t won a tournament since the 2011 Masters, but it was some very high quality positional play at close range that gifted him the £30,000 winners cheque.

Selby extended his lead at the top of the World rankings despite not lifting the title and along with the likes of Ding, Ronnie O’Sulivan, Judd Trump and John HIggins will be one of the favourites for the World title come April/May.

Ding commented after the match, ”I was nervous during the final and missed a few chances. Mark kept the pressure on me and it was a hard game. In practice I have been feeling good and playing like I was a few years ago. Apple [his girlfriend.] has helped a lot because she looks after me, cooks for me and gives me time to practice every day. It’s much better for me than before. I bought the house in Sheffield two days ago, I have just got the keys. I will put a snooker table in the garage so I can play on my own if I am not going to the Academy. I can park the car outside, the table is more important!”

Mark Selby spoke after the defeat saying,

“The frame I lost to go 2-2 rather than 3-1 up was probably the turning point, even if it didn’t seem like it at the time. I had my fair share of chances in the match and you can’t afford to miss them against a player of Ding’s class. He’s one of the best break-builders. At 5-3 down I had to take my chances and I didn’t take enough of them. I never give up until the last ball is potted and if I could have got to 8-7 I would have been right in it, but every credit to Ding for how well he played. I’m taking the positives out of the week because I’ve turned my form around and with more hard work hopefully I can win another title this season.”

The next ranking event is currently underway with the qualifiers for the China Open taking place this week.

Image from Worldsnooker.com