'So boring' - Mark Selby and Mark Allen share joke during safety battle in World Snooker Championship semi-final
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Updated 27/04/2023 at 20:31 GMT
Snooker can offer up thrills and spills with swashbuckling passages of play and brilliant potting. It can also offer up tense moments and testing passages of play. The third frame of the World Snooker Championship semi-final between Mark Selby and Mark Allen gave us the latter, but the tension was punctured as the players shared a light-hearted exchange.
Selby calls Allen ‘boring’ after astonishing safety exchange
After a barrage of pots in the afternoon semi-final between Luca Brecel and Si Jiahui, those at the Crucible for the evening match between Mark Selby and Mark Allen were treated to a 45-minute frame that descended into comedy at one stage.
With the pair trading the opening two frames, tough snooker was the order of the day with neither player prepared to back down.
With a red near the bottom-right pocket, the priority was to hide it from the opponent.
A cluster of balls were between cue ball and object ball when a red found its way into the left cushion. It appeared a safe place, and the white found its way there.
What was to follow was a game of chicken as both feathered the white in order to not give the upper hand to the other.
Selby fouled on two occasions, which was a better option than to be too heavy-handed and gift an opening.
As the exchange continued, Selby drew laughter from the crowd by saying: “So boring.”
Quick as a flash, Allen fired back: “We have three more days of this.”
It was a light moment to puncture an extremely tense passage of play.
Selby is the safety king, but he blinked first by sending the white into a different area of the table and it did not pay off as a short while later Allen picked off a break of 66 to edge an epic third frame.
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