‘A very tough ask’ – Mark Selby on Stephen Hendry saying he could beat Scot’s record world title haul
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Updated 28/12/2021 at 12:24 GMT
“Stephen Hendry has come out and said that he thinks I am the most likely and maybe the only person to equal or even better his record of seven world titles,” said the 2021 world champion. Selby beat Shaun Murphy 18-5 in May in the best-of-35-frames showpiece event to add to previous victories in 2014, 2016 and 2017.
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Mark Selby says he would be delighted to add one more world title to his haul of four but noted that Stephen Hendry believes that the Leicestershire cueist is the biggest threat to the Scot’s record haul of seven.
The Jester from Leicester added a fourth world title to successes in 2014, 2016 and 2017 in May at the Crucible after beating childhood friend Shaun Murphy in the best-of-35-frame final.
The win moved Selby on to four world titles, level alongside John Higgins. Only Ray Reardon, Steve Davis, Ronnie O'Sullivan – all on six – and seven-time winner Hendry are ahead of him on the all-time list.
Selby has competed at the tournament 17 times, making the final on five occasions. He lost to Higgins in 2007 before beating O’Sullivan in 2014, Ding Junhui in 2016 and Higgins in 2017 ahead of his 2021 win.
And while the 38-year-old insists he is happy with his lot, he noted that Hendry had earmarked him as a potential challenger to the Scot’s record haul of seven.
“Stephen Hendry has come out and said that he thinks I am the most likely and maybe the only person to equal or even better his record of seven world titles,” said Selby in quotes reported by the Scotsman.
“To try and beat it would be another four world titles – double what I have now and standing only halfway. Even to equal it would be another three, a very tough ask.
Sitting here now if I won one more world title before I called it a day I would be pretty over the moon with that, because I know how hard it is.
“Then maybe another couple of Triple Crown wins, victories at the UK Championship or the Masters. They are the big titles that everyone remembers and judges you on.”
Selby has also won two UK Championship and three Masters crowns to take his Triple Crown collection to nine, and added that the difficulty in winning those events is best captured by the relative scarcity of them in Judd Trump’s collection.
“Players like Judd…he is a great, great player but still has just the three major wins and some people will always bring that up. I am sure by the end of his career he will have got that number right up," he added.
He is still young and a great – but to be that all-time great like Hendry, O’Sullivan, Higgins, Davis, [Mark] Williams, you want those major successes.
“Hendry and O’Sullivan look at the majors and triple crowns people have won, much as they would in tennis with Federer, Nadal and Djokovic.”
The Masters snooker begins on 10 January 2021.
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