Selby Comes Through A Slog
Mark Selby admitted his Wyldecrest Parks Welsh Open quarter-final against former world champion Graeme Dott was 'not pretty to watch' but at least the Leicester ace got through to meet Scotland's Stephen Maguire on Saturday.
There were three reasonable breaks in the match but, with balls running safe and missed chances, the game was seriously scrappy.
Selby said: "We both struggled before the interval and I should have been 4-0 up before the interval.
"I really struggled as did Graeme. We just bogged each other down. We probably both tried too hard and, when you do that, your best game doesn't come out where as if you relax, you enjoy it a lot more.
"It's tough because, when you get to the latter stages of a tournament, you want to go out there and win it because you don't know when you are going to be there again with the standard of play in the game at the moment.
"At the end of the day, I've won the match, irrelevant of the performance. If I played like that and kept winning, I wouldn't mind instead of playing well and getting beaten."
Selby's biggest contributions were a 73 break in the second frame and an 88 in the sixth, with Dott notching a 62 in frame four.
But, even though the Scot has climbed above Ronnie O'Sullivan in the world rankings, he was not at all happy about his game with Selby.
"At this stage of my career, I don't think it is possible to play any worse than I did out there," said Dott, who won the world title in 2006 when beating Peter Ebdon.
"It was embarrassing all the way through. I have not played well all week. I improved against Neil (Robertson in his second round match) and I just get frustrated when it is a slog. It just was horrible. Mark didn't play well either."
