Dott extends Selby advantage

Mark Selby may have been made the tournament favourite by the bookmakers when he defeated Ronnie O’Sullivan a couple of nights ago but 2006 champion Graeme Dott has shown the value of his experience again today to extend his lead to 10-6. Can Mark launch another comeback?

Resuming the first session with a two frame deficit at 5-3, Mark Selby must have been optimistic that he could not play any worse than he had done the previous evening but again it was a disjointed performance from the world number seven who struggled to hang on to the ever-impressive Dott.

Having shared the first four frames to maintain his overnight advantage, Graeme then got frame 13 underway with a fabulous long red and having dropped perfectly on the black, was well set to make another big break, having already made runs of 66 and 84 in the session. Even he however might not have expected to make a 146, only the second ever at the Crucible just days after Mark Allen made the first against Mark Davis in the second round. As well as taking a half share of the £10,000 high break prize, Graeme’s reward was to stretch his lead to 8-5, before adding a further two frames to move 10-5 clear.

By taking the last though, Selby kept himself just about in contention, although despite having recovered from four frames down to win his last match, I do not particularly fancy his chances of repeating the feat against Graeme tomorrow. Indeed for me Graeme has probably been the most impressive player in the tournament since the first session of his match against Peter Ebdon, combining his usual tenacity and safety skills with the type of heavy scoring that you would not always associate with the Scot. A Selby comeback is by no means impossible but unlike O’Sullivan, I cannot see Graeme experiencing problems with his temperament if the match were to run close.