This is WST report on what happened in Brentwood yesterday

BetVictor English Open Day Five

Shaun Murphy produced a phenomenal burst of 457 unanswered points to beat Zak Surety 4-0 at the BetVictor English Open in Brentwood.

The Magician was on the cusp of a historic display and total shutout. He fired in three century runs of 125, 135 and 133 in the opening three frames to blitz to the verge of victory. However, two misses in the fourth did allow Surety to get eight points on the board.

Murphy was aiming to join Neil Robertson, who was the only other player to win a best of seven with four centuries and denying his opponent a single point. The Australian achieved that feat in 2013 against Ahmed Saif.

Although Murphy didn’t achieve that feat, it was an emphatic triumph for the Englishman. He recently lost his place in the top 16 of the Johnstone’s Paint World rankings for the first time in 19 years. On this evidence it won’t be long until he’s back, he now faces Fan Zhengyi.

Murphy said: “One of the negatives of me also having a broadcast career is that I am aware of these types of moments or stats. I know that 4-0 with four centuries and without my opponent scoring a point is special.

“It is the performance that you dream of. When you practise for all of those hours you dream of playing like that in front of a crowd like tonight.”

Mark Selby scored a comprehensive 4-1 win over Liam Highfield to get his bid for a third English Open crown underway.

Selby’s victory in 2022 saw him beat Luca Brecel 9-6 in the final. It was a momentous triumph for the Leicester cueman, who was battling mental health struggles away from the table and hadn’t lifted silverware for 19 months on it.

Today’s encounter saw Highfield claim the opening frame, before breaks of 52, 101 and 103 helped Selby to four on the bounce and the win. He now plays Scottish Open champion Lei Peifan.

Selby said: “It was huge to win in 2022. There would have been positives if I’d lost the final, but I’d probably not have seen it that way. When you lose a final it is raw and tough to take. Having won that and turned a corner was a huge asset for me mentally. I think going forward it was important to my snooker career.”

Belgium’s 2023 World Champion Luca Brecel scored a nerve shredding 4-3 win over Iranian number one Hossein Vafaei. Next up for Brecel is Si Jiahui.

Robbie Williams stunned Kyren Wilson 4-2 to book his progression and a meeting with Pang Junxu.

As always all the detailed results are available on snooker.org

I don’t have much to add as, for once, the matches featuring in the report are those I watched. Kyren Wilson had a bad day in office and Robbie Williams can play. Of course he can … all those who qualified for the main tour can play at a very high level

Other than that, Phil Haigh shared a very interesting interview with Neil Robertson

Neil Robertson hopes player power brings more transparency from snooker chiefs

Neil Robertson hopes increased player power can help provide more transparency on how snooker is funded.

The Professional Snooker Players Association (PSPA) has emerged as an independent players’ union, with four-time world champion John Higgins as its chairman and with a string of big names involved.

It is early days for the new association, but they have outlined a number of issues they want to address with World Snooker Tour (WST) and the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA), mainly surrounding player welfare.

There is concern that the PSPA will clash with the established powers that be, including WPBSA Players, the existing players board, of which Robertson is a member.

However, the Australian has dismissed the idea of infighting becoming an issue between the players and welcomes the new association.

‘I don’t see that happening,’ Robertson said of potential clashes. ‘The (WPBSA) Players board is very small. It’s myself and a handful of others.

‘As far as I know, there’s meant to be a meeting between us to see how we can move things forward and do the right things for the players and for the game. Watch this space, I suppose.’

On whether he could be a member of both WPBSA Players and the PSPA, he said: ‘I’m not too sure what I am allowed to do or not allowed to do, but I’m not completely opposed to the idea at all. I think the Players Board is very good for what it does, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say that I think the players should have more power.’

Robertson was motivated to join WPBSA Players to help resolve a number of issues he sees in the game, one of the most significant being more transparency on revenue streams in the sport.

The former world champion feels players should be made aware of the finances surrounding television and sponsorship deals, so they can better understand the way the sport is funded.

‘The main thing is players want a lot more transparency with what’s going on,’ he said. ‘When there are these massive deals that are happening, the TV deals etc, I think that the players are certainly within their rights to find out how much these deals are actually worth.

‘When Barry Hearn took over, we were just so grateful to be playing the sport again and to be playing in a lot of tournaments. But that doesn’t mean that the players should be blind to all these deals and sponsorship deals that are coming into these events.

‘That’s probably one of the big issues is that the players just want to know, okay, the prize money breakdown is this. How much was actually contributed by the promoter or the sponsor?’

Another major alteration that Robertson wants to see is around scheduling of tournaments as he feels the calendar should be organised with geography more firmly in mind.

Chinese events are not played consecutively on the calendar, chiefly because promoters want them separated in order to stand out and be more prestigious, but Robertson feels other factors are more important.

‘The scheduling, long-term, is something I want fixed,’ he said. ‘I don’t want us bouncing all over the world. There’s jetlag, but not only that, players are having to pay out double or triple the travel expenses that we really need to. That could be condensed.

‘I’m sure we could get a situation where the calendar is better structured in and around the Asian events and then we work our way back to the UK.

There’s no reason to fly to Shanghai and all of a sudden you’ve got a week gap out of nowhere. Then you go into Saudi and then you go back to UK, then you’re going back to China again. Then you’re going back to UK and then you’re going back to China again.

‘It’s too much and there aren’t many sports which put that kind of demand on players. Just because a promoter says that they want it this way, I don’t think is really enough.

‘These kinds of things we’re trying to get done and change. A bit more empathy towards the players and their travels and all these sorts of things.’

The “bold” highlight is my doing because I feel this is very important ant it’s something I have been saying for years. The players health and wellbeing should come first and bouncing back and forth through time zones isn’t contributing positively to them. and Also, if one does not want to have weeks of “qualifiers” one after another, and then months without a thing for some players, it would force WST, WPBSA and China to accept that events are played in one go, from round one with all 128 players involved at or close to the main venue. Just like the current English Open is right now. That is how it should be. And I will add, there should be a “Mainland Europe” group of events as well, with Belgium, Germany and Poland as obvious candidates to host some tournaments. Scandinavia should certainly be considered too.

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