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Shaun Murphy has broken Ronnie O’Sullivan’s long-standing record for most points scored without reply in a snooker match.
The Magician took on Matt Selt in the last 32 of the China Open in Taiyuan on Sunday and was in spectacular form.
This year’s World Championship runner-up made breaks of 61, 132, 103, 139 and 113 to surge into a 5-0 lead without Selt scoring a point.
He opened the scoring in the sixth frame, but could not wrap things up in one visit and Selt scored his first points of the match.
That saw Murphy’s run of unanswered scoring end at 607 points, smashing the previous record held by the Rocket.
O’Sullivan scored 556 points without reply against Ricky Walden at the Masters in 2014, a record which has stood for over 12 years.
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Murphy secured the sixth and final frame of the match to beat Selt 6-0, just as O’Sullivan hammered Walden 6-0 at Alexandra Palace in 2014.
It is fair to say that conditions at the events in China tend to be easier for scoring than in tournaments in the UK, with pockets generally more accepting, making break-building easier.
The conditions are the same for all the players in the tournament, though, and Murphy’s performance was spectacular regardless of the table.
The Magician goes on to face Xiao Guodong in the last 16 after the Chinese star beat Anthony McGill 6-3 in his opening game.
The 43-year-old appears to have got over the disappointment of defeat in the Crucible final to Wu Yize in May in a deciding frame.
The Englishman was brilliant in Sheffield in this year but narrowly missed out on a second world title as he was edged out 18-17 by the 22-year-old Chinese sensation.
The pair have already met again this season and Wu dished out more pain to Murphy, beating him 6-5 in the quarter-finals of the Shanghai Masters.
Elsewhere in the China Open, there was a surprise opening round defeat for Judd Trump, who was beaten 6-3 by Noppon Saengkham on Sunday.
The world number one won the Shanghai Masters earlier this month and was widely tipped for another deep run here, but fell at the first hurdle.
On Saturday there were defeats for other top 16 players at the hand of qualifiers, notably Chinese legend Ding Junhui being hammered 6-1 by Dave Gilbert.
Mark Williams also lost out 6-3 to Zhou Yuelong and Barry Hawkins was downed 6-4 by Liu Hongyu.
Hossein Vafaei has strolled into the last 16 after beating wildcard Liu Linhao 6-0 and then getting a bye in the last 32 after Mark Allen withdrew.
More to follow…
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