Snooker WC: 4-time World Champ smashes cue as 2003-born youngster sends him packing

As the snooker world had it's eyes locked in on the epic 2nd round clash between Ronnie O'Sullivan and John Higgins, there was a bang in the neighboring table, that made the crowd gasp. At the same time on the other table Mark Selby was facing Chinese youngster Wu Yize.

Born in just 2003, Wu has already had a couple of years on the Tour, but never before had he managed to get the better of Selby. However, the young Chinese had no intentions of bowing down to the 4-time World Champion under the Crucible lights this time, despite never making it past the 1st round here.

Lanzhou's pride came into this year's World Championships with some extra confidence, as earlier in the season he took his maiden ranking title at the Nanjing International Championship. He defeated John Higgins in the final, which surely spurred him on today as he took to the final session with a 9-7 lead.

However, it takes something special to topple someone as seasoned at the Crucible as Selby is, and just that happened in the 21st frame. After trading a bunch of frames to start off the final session, Wu led 11-9 before a marathon 53-minute frame.

Selby had a great chance of narrowing the gap down to just one frame, but missing a guilt-edged red saw the red mist descend. "The Jester from Leicester" might have been caught out by the crowd's applause for the neighboring table, but the "SPLÄT!" that echoed in the Crucible was unexpected as he smashed his cue into the side of the table.

Going 12-9 down was tough, but the cue smash did serve as some sort of rallying cry, as he came back to 12-11. However, a clutch snooker from Wu in the final frame proved a step too far, with his escape leaving a red for the Chinese youngster to clear and grab a ticket to the quarter-finals.

- The match was very tough and tiring. Especially with Mark being so good, you're stuck in safety battles all the time. I'm especially happy that I managed to keep up with him. This was the first time I've played so well defensively, and the first time I manage to beat Mark Selby, Wu said proudly after the match.

The Chinese youngster's quarter-final opponent comes from the 2nd round matchup between Judd Trump and Hossein Vafaei.

You can watch Selby's red mist moment via the link below.



See Selby's cue smash here.

Below you can find all the scores, results and schedule from the Snooker World Championship 2nd round.




Source: WST