In the early morning of January 11, Beijing time, the 2024 Snooker Masters continued. In a key game in the 1/8 finals, 4-time world champion "Joker" Mark Selby, played well with veteran Robert Milkins, 4-0 hot start, won 4 match points 5-1, and won one more game to advance to the top 8.
The Snooker Masters is one of the three major events in snooker, and the 2024 Snooker Masters is the second event after the start of the new year, and the first event to be held after the start of the new year is the invitational version of the Champions League. "China's first brother" Ding Junhui habitually gave up the Champions League, and the four-time world champion Selby played in the second group.
In the group round-robin, he advanced to the top 4 with 4 wins and 2 losses, defeated "Captain" Alister Carter 3-1 in the group semifinals, and lost 2-3 to Chris Wakelin in the group finals, missing out on advancing to the upper group with the group championship.
With a small regret in the Champions League, Selby ushered in the 2024 Masters, he has a very good performance in this event, has won the championship three times, and in 2008, Selby won the Masters for the first time.
That year, Selby made it all the way to the final of the Masters, where he swept Stephen "Fat Man" Lee 10-3 to win the Masters for the first time. Since then, Selby has won the Masters twice, in 2010 and 2013.
In the opening match of this year's Masters, Selby's opponent was veteran Robert Milkins. In the past, the two have a total of 18 meetings and a record of 14 wins and 4 losses, which is an absolute advantage. Specific to this year's Masters, Selby faced Milkins again, and continued to crush his opponent strongly in the game.
In this game, Selby took the lead at the beginning, taking the lead 100-8, and then won three games in a row to lead 4-0. After Milkins scored 88 points in a single stroke to pull back a game, Selby scored 70 points in a single stroke in the sixth game, and the score advantage was extended to 5-1 and won four match points strongly. One more win would have lifted Selby to advance to the quarterfinals, while Milkins would have to win five games in a row to advance, a task that is almost impossible to complete.