Mark Selby, who is ranked no. 1 in the world, is the first post-80s person in the world today. While he's currently only a player with 20 ranking titles in hand, he already has four World Championship titles in his hands, even more than Robertson, Murphy and Trump combined. While Robertson and Trump are already ahead of Selby in terms of ranking title stats, they are still a long way from Selby in terms of achievement. Selby is the only player in snooker to win four world championships in eight years since entering the 21st century, and such dominance even surpasses that of "Rocket" O'Sullivan. Even Trump at the top is far inferior to him, and that's the truth.
Selby's four crowns in eight years show true dominance
Although Selby only won his first trophy in his tenth year of professional life, his dominance was terrifying when he actually reached his peak. He has won the world number one for seven consecutive years, won four world championships in eight years, and defeated the top O'Sullivan, Ding Junhui and Higgins to complete the feat of three world championships in four years. Despite setbacks in the following two years, he made a strong comeback at the 2020 World Championships to reach the final four and completed the feat of winning the World Championships the following year. Although he stumbled along the way and almost got out, his excellent tactics and excellent experience made him the last laugher. He proved his dominance at the World Championships with practical actions.
Trump's performance at the World Championships was unsatisfactory
Trump's real fame was in 2011, in addition to winning the first title, he also reached the final of the World Championships, although he did not win the championship, but he also became famous in one fell swoop. In the years that followed, however, Trump mostly played the role of backdrop for the achievements of others. It wasn't until the 2019 World Championships that Trump won the first World Championship trophy of his career with a seven-stroke 100 and eight-shot 50+ final performance. He thought Trump would start a new start in the three major competitions of his career after winning his first world championship, but in the last three seasons, he has not won a single of the three major championships. The next two World Championships were defeated by Wilson and Murphy, and Trump's performance of dropping the chain at key moments in the World Championships caused him to miss many opportunities. Maybe he's a technically good player, but his mentality isn't enough to get him to go further.
Selby performed well beyond Trump at the World Championships
Although Selby is now nearly 40 years old, his current World Championship performance is still better than Trump's. In terms of the last two years, Trump's form is obviously much better than Selby's, but Trump has fallen into the final four for two consecutive years, and it is a small gap. Technically, Trump is obviously better, but the tactics he laid out when playing the World Championships and the psychological quality of facing key moments are really not good. And Trump has always relied heavily on alignment, while long-term games tend to rely more on the overall ability of players. Players with more comprehensive abilities tend to have more advantages on the stage of the World Championships, but Trump is not very good in terms of ability and psychological quality in possession, so his shortcomings are easy to be exploited. But that's none of this for Selby, who has excellent defensive and ball-handling skills, and his tactics and playing style can better control the rhythm of the game. So he tends to have an advantage in games like this because he knows how to win in long-innings. Today, Trump is still very dependent on his accuracy, and once there is no accuracy, then his game is very difficult to play. This is also the key to Selby's ability to perform far better than Trump at the World Championships to this day.