Mark Selby was in sparkling form as he demolished Ali Carter 6-1 at the Masters on Monday and old rival Ronnie O’Sullivan could scarcely have been more impressed.
The four-time world champion made breaks of 62, 108, 93, 126 and 53 in a brilliant display to book a spot in the quarter-finals where he will play Mark Allen or Si Jiahui.
The Jester from Leicester won the British Open in September but had been a little quiet since then until he won a Championship League group last week and looked good doing it.
O’Sullivan was blown away by his performance at Alexandra Palace, though, saying it’s the best he has seen from Selby in years.
‘I don’t think I’ve seen Mark play this well for six or seven years maybe,’ O’Sullivan said on Eurosport. ‘He looks really, really sharp, his safety is always great and he’s scoring really well. You look at the reaction he’s getting out of the cue ball, he’s got all the shots at the moment.
‘It’s impossible to play against, really. You’d have to play like Judd Trump, really top class snooker, to put Selby under a little bit of pressure, but you don’t half have to play some serious snooker to do that.’
The Rocket suggested Selby has been below his best in recent seasons, even though that is still a very good standard, but reckons that the form he showed against Carter is near-impossible to live with.
‘I think the last couple of seasons, he always gives it his hardest and will always be a top four or five player even when he’s not at his best,’ he said of Selby. ‘But when he plays like that he looks like he enjoys the battle, scores well, the temperament, the granite, it’s hard to play against, especially over long matches in big tournaments. When Mark plays like that it’s kind of impossible to play.’
O’Sullivan continued the compliments by comparing Selby to legendary figures in the sport, Ray Reardon and Steve Davis.
‘He’s probably like Reardon style play. Reardon was an amazing safety player, great break-builder, amazing potter, had everything. He was the ultimate player. Davis [as well].
‘Not so much [Stephen] Hendry, he was more of a potter, more like Judd [Trump] if you like. But as the complete player, with Davis and Reardon as all time greats, you’d put him in the same bracket.’
Selby himself was typically understated, saying: ‘I played some good stuff. I played in the Championship League for a bit of match practice and I felt like I was hitting the ball ok and played some good stuff so it’s nice to continue that form on.’
After the glowing praise from the Rocket, he and Selby shared some fascinating insight into the mental struggles that snooker players go through.
O’Sullivan pulled out of this week’s Masters, explaining that he was struggling to deal with a build-up of pressure ahead of the event.
Selby has been open about his mental health struggles in recent years and feels like he should have pulled out of last year’s World Championship when he was at a low ebb.
Both men agreed that players need more help with their mental state and O’Sullivan suggested that someone should be available at all tournaments for players to speak to.
‘I think World Snooker should have someone at a tournament employed for if someone is struggling, come off the table and needs to have 10 minutes with someone,’ said the seven-time world champion. ‘I’m not saying everyone would go in there. But a lot of players suffer in silence, I can tell, I just look at them, they’re struggling.
‘They should have someone to go to and talk to. You have coaches sorting your cue action out, but really you need someone to unload a bit. I think it would really help the players.
‘If they could find the money to employ them full time to be there for the players because it really is tough mentally. If he [Selby] is struggling mentally and I struggle mentally and John Higgins struggles mentally then the other 124 are a million per cent struggling mentally.
‘The guy would be busy. Whoever they employed, he would be a busy man.’
Selby added: ‘There’ll be a lot of players who are suffering who don’t want to speak out or are scared to speak out. But if they’ve got someone like that where they can go off in the corner and speak to them one-on-one, they’d be more comfortable doing that.’
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