Selby's blog: Late nights

It was a disjointed match and I accept that I did not play brilliantly, but I'm delighted to have negotiated the first hurdle - and can now look forward to the rest of the tournament.

There were a lot of scrappy frames and the balls kept dropping on to the cushions, which made it such a long, drawn-out contest.

I played poorly at the beginning of the match; but I feel I got a little better after the mid-session interval and, like I said, I was just happy to get over the line in the end.

I did feel a bit a pressure coming into the match, not so much because of my first-round defeat at the UK Championship, but more because I was the defending champion. A lot of pressure comes with that.

Hopefully I'll be a bit more relaxed from here on in: it is still an early stage of the tournament, with players just looking to get that first win under their belts, so I think it will be a while before you start seeing people produce their best form.

In the next round I will face Mark Allen or Ryan Day. Ryan beat me 5-4 in the Grand Prix earlier in the season, but Mark is an excellent player too - and in this tournament there are no easy games.

A lot of the talk at the Masters has come on the back of Ronnie O'Sullivan's comments that snooker needs a new X-Factor edge, and I'm certainly someone who is very open to new ideas.

A lot has been made of how darts has been reinvented and I think there are things we can learn from that. Something like players coming out to music, for example, I would be in favour of; although I have no idea which song I would choose!

However, there are other things that work with darts - such as the rowdy crowds - that wouldn't work with snooker; but we should certainly be trying things to add excitement to the game.

Finally, it was with great sadness that I learned of the recent deaths of both television presenter David Vine and referee John Street.

I never got to know either man because I was just coming into the sport when they were retiring, but they were part and parcel of the game when I was watching it as a fan growing up - and it is a real tragedy for snooker that they have both passed away.