In the early morning of April 24, Beijing time, the 2022 Snooker World Championship ended a rather tiring "Grind king" battle at the Sheffield Crucible Theatre. After nearly four hours of hard fighting, Chinese player Yan Bingtao played 4-3 in the final stage of the quarter-finals, defeating the defending champion and world number one "Leicester Clown" Mark Selby on aggregate 13-10, and reached the quarterfinals for the first time in his fourth World Championship, breaking through the bottleneck of his career. Yan Bingtao is also the only Chinese player who remains at the Crucible Theatre at this World Championship.
This match is enough to go down in the annals of the World Championships, because the two players known as the "King of Big and Small Grinding" meet, and the game takes a long time. But although the process was slow, the defensive quality of the two sides was very high, and in the end, Yan Bingtao was more "grinding", setting a record of four consecutive defeats against Selby. The first stage of the game 8 innings took three and a half hours, the second stage of 8 innings played a full three hours, and the last stage, although only 7 innings, took 3 hours and 50 minutes, from the early morning of Beijing time on the 24th to the early morning of Beijing time. In the 22nd inning, the two fought for 85 minutes, which also broke the record for the longest single set at the World Championships, and finally Yan Bingtao won the game with difficulty to get the match point, and played a single 112 points in the next set, winning with one shot, and continued to advance in the snooker holy land of Crucible. During this stage, the two even had a rare scene in the game where they applied to the referee to go to the bathroom because of urinary urgency.
Although Selby has always been a "bitter hand" player that is difficult for Chinese players to beat, but because of the similar style of play, he is 17 years younger than Selby, and Yan Bingtao, who is also extremely focused on defense, has never been afraid of the four-time World Championship winner and the best player in the world after 80s. Before that, Yan Bingtao and Selby had played against each other 7 times and won 4 victories. And the last three encounters have won yan Bingtao: the third round of the 2021 England Open, Yan Bingtao 4-3 Selby; the 2021 Champions League group final, Yan Bingtao 6-3 Selby; the second round of the 2022 German Masters, Yan Bingtao 5-4 Selby. Although the longest of these three consecutive wins is only an 11-inning 6-win short game, the two sides have never met in a long-term game, but Xiao Yan has established enough psychological advantages not to fear the opponent in the heart, although I am fat, I am young and not afraid of consumption. Sure enough, although Yan Bingtao did not lead at every stage of the three-stage competition, he always suppressed the play of the "Old Mill King" and treated his body with his human way, which made Selby feel constrained everywhere and quite depressed.
In the first stage, the two sides drew 4-4, and it was Selbi who fought hard to achieve a draw. In the second stage, Yan Bingtao established a two-set lead, and the score came to 9-7. In the final decisive stage, the two sides used the "grinding work" to the extreme, and spent their main energy on defense and doing security in the world, Yan Bingtao smiled to the end.
In 2017, Yan Bingtao reached the main round of the World Championship for the first time, stopping at the first round, when he was only 17 years old. After a three-year hiatus, in both 2020 and 2021, Yan Bingtao reached the round of 16 and performed steadily, and this time he went further, defeating qualifier Wei Kelin and Selby on the way forward to advance to the quarterfinals for the first time, and he is also the fourth player in the Chinese players to reach the quarterfinals, the previous three are Fu Jiajun, Ding Junhui and Liang Wenbo. Yan Bingtao is the youngest and only post-00s new century player, worthy of congratulations. In the next round of 1/4 finals, Yan Bingtao will face Mark Williams, one of the "Golden Left Hand" and "75 Three Masters" with completely different styles.
Selby, who lost the game, also earned the respect of the fans. Since winning the World Championships last season, he has not been able to win the ranking championship, and his results have plummeted, and he has officially announced to the outside world that he has a mental illness (depression). Indeed, compared with the handsome and handsome "Lester Clown" in the past, who would sometimes play strangely in the arena, now he has a beard and a face full of vicissitudes, which shows that he is enduring mental torture and illness.
Selby said he could only take medication to control his depression, "During this time I felt like I was locked in a bottle, I told my wife that I might never win the championship again, and now the competition makes me feel incredibly difficult." 」 I feel that winning the championship is just a luxury and even a feeling of transcendence, depression has almost emptied almost all my life, and I can now say that I don't feel a little happy. But that doesn't mean I'm going to give up chasing the title, any race result won't change my style and mentality, I'll keep working in the direction of moving forward, I also understand that winning a title again will be very important to me, and I desperately want a title to relax myself. ”
Selby's playing style is not appetizing to some fans, but this is also part of snooker's sports skills, objectively existing, even if it is only for the simple pursuit of game victory as long as it conforms to the rules, it is okay to bless Selby, of course, more congratulations to the victorious Yan Bingtao, who bears the hope of winning the World Championship for Chinese players.
Text/Beiqing Sports Liu Ailin