At the 2005 World Snooker Championships, Sean Murphy shocked the British sports scene by ascending from a marginal figure with odds of only 150/1 and lifting the World Championship Trophy, symbolizing Snooker's highest honor.
He beat Matthew Stevens 18-16 to make a good story, but the story really started much earlier. Media personality Richard Hucock was the narrator of this story, and he recalled the interview with Murphy, who impressed him with his confidence.
In sports, confidence and conceit are often separated by a line, so that many sports have introduced video assistant referee VAR, so when an unknown snooker player talks about how to win the world championship, especially when Ronnie O'Sullivan is the defending champion, Hecock inevitably has a little bit of a good meaning.
Sean Murphy only switched careers in 1998, and at the age of 15, he was naturally favored by some people, but when he reached the World Championships twice before 2002 and 2003, he suffered first-round exits (losing to Stephen Hendry and Ken Dahdi respectively), and after Murphy came to Sheffield, not many media were willing to mention him.
Yet against this backdrop, he will be the second qualifier in Crucible history to win the title – terry Griffiths, who first completed the feat in 1979 and became a hit. The 2005 World Championship was also the Crucible debut of future world champions Neil Robertson and Mark Selby, who were out in the first round and Murphy beat Chris Small in the first game to open the way to the title.
Former world champions John Higgins, Steve Davis and Peter Alberton were "raped" by Murphy, and people began to be shocked, and the media followed suit. The competition in the final was fierce, stevens led 10-6 after the first day, and after the third stage, he led slightly 12-11, and when the score became 16-16, Murphy ushered in a real mental test.
Over the past 16 days, he has used a series of jaw-dropping long stages to fool thousands of spectators at the Crucible scene and in front of television. At the beginning of the 33rd inning of the final, Murphy cleanly scored the ball and scored the difficult red ball to help him get to the match point smoothly. In the 34th inning, the Welshman played first, but scored only 28 points, with 11 red balls left on the table, and Murphy scored 83 points to end the game.
Murphy said: "I can't believe I can really take home the World Championship Trophy, which has Joe Davis's name on it, and from 1927 to the present day, I haven't realized what it means. This is the representation of a sport, like the British Open of golf and the Wimbledon of tennis, and this is the epitome of the whole sport. ”
"I have other dreams and goals that I can achieve, and winning the World Championship is certainly one of them, but I didn't expect it to happen at the age of 22." The Crucible title brought him £250,000 in prize money, and he subsequently achieved a grand slam in the "big three".
The day after Murphy won, the Yorkshire Post sent a journalist to accompany Hecock to the Sheffield Hotel to interview Murphy, and the protagonist jumped from the sports column to the front page of the newspaper, which was enough to show the dignity of the world champion.
Today, Murphy, like most modern athletes, has been trained to deal with the media, and every time he wins, he always seems to be able to provide some good sports column material for his media friends who have been waiting for the results for a long time, in stark contrast to the bland, muttering press conferences.
As he hugged the World Championship trophy, he said: "I've got to buy a bigger mantelpiece!" "It was an unforgettable race that witnessed Murphy's proud transformation from qualifying to world champion that will live on forever in people's memories.