Selby Turns on the Style to Win Title on Debut

Mark Selby made four centuries in becoming - in style - the fifth player to win the Masters on debut by overwhelming Stephen Lee 10-3 to take the £150,000 first prize. Only John Spencer, the inaugural winner in 1975, Doug Mountjoy, Terry Griffiths and Stephen Hendry had won at the first time of asking.

"It means the world to me," said the 24-year-old. "I've been knocking on the door for a while - it was time I went on to win one. I'm only 24 but this week I've felt like I was 40. The nerves obviously do get to me, but luckily I didn't show them and I managed to play good snooker."

Selby, whose grit and nerve had assisted him to 6-5 wins over Hendry, Stephen Maguire and Ken Doherty, trailed 3-2 yesterday, notwithstanding back-to-back breaks of 124 and 88, but by winning the remaining frames of the afternoon and the first five of the evening he surged to victory on an eight-frame winning streak. He was to add three more centuries - 132, 125 and, in the clinching frame, 141, the last securing a half-share of the £10,000 highest break prize with Doherty.

Lee's highest break remained his 41 of the opening frame. Appearing in his first Wembley final in 11 visits, he was thoroughly outplayed. He also suffered a wretched run of the balls in some of the close frames, and could take consolation only in the £68,000 second prize.

The top eight in the provisional rankings shows the extent to which a group of 20-somethings are making their presence felt. In addition to Selby (fifth), Maguire (second), Shaun Murphy (third), Neil Robertson (sixth) and Ding Junhui (eighth) have all won major tournaments.

Runner-up to John Higgins at the Crucible last spring and a semi-finalist in last month's UK championship, Selby took the first title of his eight-year professional career with aplomb, strikingly demonstrated when he seized his first chance of the evening, in front of a crowd of 3,000 in the cavernous arena, to make a clearance of 132.

A cheerful sort, whose fondness for jokes has prompted the sobriquet "The Jester from Leicester", Selby originally possessed a prodigiously long backswing, even for short, slow shots. But even with this technique he beat Hendry and Ronnie O'Sullivan in reaching the semi-finals of the 2002 China Open and was runner-up in the 2003 Scottish Open, only to realize that a more compact action might be needed for further improvement.

After a period of adjustment he rose quickly in the rankings, scoring so much more heavily that 43 of the 68 centuries he has compiled in eight years on the circuit have come in the past 18 months.