One shot 112 points, locking the score at 13:10. The 22-year-old Yan Bingtao swung his fist hard, and the joy of reaching the quarterfinals of the Snooker World Championship for the first time was overflowing with words. Mark Selby, whose journey to defend his title had stopped, patted Yan Bingtao on the shoulder, which was a lost release, but also an encouragement and expectation.
Yan Bingtao waved his fist to celebrate after the game
Defeating him in the way that Selby was best at, Yan Bingtao did it.
On April 23, local time, in the second round of the Snooker World Championships, Yan Bingtao withstood the pressure, from 4:4 in the first stage, to 9:7 in the second stage, and then to 13:10 in the third stage, Yan Bingtao achieved another major breakthrough.
This is the third consecutive year that Yan Bingtao has advanced to the Round of 16 of the World Championships, but the first two times he lost in the quarter-finals, losing to Trump and Murphy respectively. This year, he finally broke the "window paper". "It was one of the most important wins of my career." Yan Bingtao sighed after the game.
Yan Bingtao in the game
This is also Yan Bingtao's fourth beating Selby this season. Looking ahead to the match before the game, he said: "This will be the first time I've played with Mark in a 13-win format in 25 innings. I know that no matter what his form is, I need to do particularly well in all aspects of the long-game game, and I have to have a steady play at every stage to win. I'm hungry for victory and I'll enjoy the game, the outcome is certainly hard to predict, but maybe I can win the first time!"
With such self-confidence and steady steps, Yan Bingtao ushered in his long-awaited challenge. Patiently maneuvering, cautious out of the pole, improve the success rate of An Global, Yan Bingtao played steadily and steadily, and slowly established an advantage.
When Yan Bingtao, who became famous at a young age, first entered the professional arena, he was compared with Selby, who was also conservative in playing. Yan Bingtao also experienced ideological struggles and hesitations in his playing style, but as he honed in the professional arena, Yan Bingtao became more and more determined to implement his "bias towards winning the game".
He is no longer afraid of other people's doubts, but works harder to hone his defensive ability and constantly magnify his advantages. In this 23-inning battle, Yan Bingtao's technical statistics after the game were in the ascendant, Selby's total goals and total scores were above Yan Bingtao, and even the offensive success rate, the long platform success rate and the safety ball success rate were higher than Yan Bingtao, but Yan Bingtao just used patience and stability to win the final victory.
The technical statistics after the game Yan Bingtao did not dominate
In the crucial 22nd inning, the two defensive masters joined forces to set a new record for the Crucible Theatre. The entire match took 87 minutes and 24 seconds, of which the net time was 85 minutes and 22 seconds, which was the longest single game in the 45 years since the World Championships were held at the Crucible Theatre. The previous record was a set of more than 79 minutes between Brechel and Gary Wilson at the 2019 World Championships.
The two men wrestled with each other and set up obstacles for each other, showing the charm of the sport of snooker to the fullest. Yan Bingtao also felt particularly tired after winning this game, "We both did too much defense, he missed a good opportunity, otherwise the score would become 11 draws." ”
With firm faith and a "big heart", Yan Bingtao won the game and won the match point, and finally won the game with a single shot of 112 points.
This is Yan Bingtao's first promotion to the quarter-finals of the World Championships
In fact, in the whole game, Yan Bingtao only played 3 single strokes over 100 plus a single shot of more than 50 points, while Selby not only had 3 single strokes over 100, but also played 8 single strokes of more than 50 points. But it was precisely in the number of piecemeal innings that Yan Bingtao seized the opportunity.
The average playing time of the whole game was 28.8 seconds for Selby and 29.9 seconds for Yan Bingtao. Based on defense, steady words, no adventurous, diligent thinking, focusing on every shot, Yan Bingtao wrote a new history in Crucible.
"Yan Bingtao is in control of the game and he played well today." After the game, Searle said, "I actually did a better job than him when I started attacking the whole game, but he won five or six games that didn't go very smoothly. His defense caused me a lot of trouble. ”
At the same time that Yan Bingtao's second stage of the game started, the third stage of the good brother Zhao Xintong and Maguire was carried out at the same time. Although Zhao Xintong caught up in the third stage, he still lost to Maguire 9:13. After the game, he thought that Yan Bingtao could beat Selby and said that he wanted to learn from Yan Bingtao.
"I've been training with Yan Bingtao and I think his Ann Global is doing better than Selby, and he's also very good at attacking and scoring consecutively. We've always supported each other and I think this year he has a chance to win here. Zhao Xintong said.
Zhao Xintong (left) and Yan Bingtao met in the final of this year's German Masters, and Zhao Xintong finally won the championship.
When Yan Bingtao was asked about the prospects of winning the championship, he calmly said that he did not know how far he would go, and only hoped that he would be able to do his best in every inning and every game in the future.
Yan Bingtao will face Wales star Mark Williams in the quarter-finals. The Golden Left hand has won the World Championship three times in 2000, 2003 and 2018, and he has been in excellent form after passing the first two rounds with ease.
Williams shot a total of 10 in the first two rounds to break the 100
"Of course, this win gives me a lot of confidence. But I need to get a good night's sleep first, get into training tomorrow and prepare for the next game with a relaxed mindset. I knew I needed to do as well as this game to have a chance to beat Williams. Although it is difficult to hide his fatigue, Yan Bingtao has made psychological preparations for the quarter-finals.
Maturity beyond age has always been Yan Bingtao's label. As he overcomes his self-doubt and grows up more confident and calm, his future is as overwhelming as his chosen debut song "unstoppable".