Never-say-die Selby battles back to beat O'Sullivan

The Leicester potter, winner of last month's Wembley Masters, bravely battled back from 8-5 down to beat the Rocket 9-8 in a dramatic final-frame decider at the Newport Centre.

In doing so, the 24-year-old pocketed £35,000 as this year's worthy winner and also claimed his first ranking title.

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Comeback king: Selby shows off his prize

O'Sullivan, who took home £17,500 as the runner-up, looked favourite to clinch his 20th ranking victory, a milestone only previously achieved by Stephen Hendry (36) and Steve Davis (28).

The provisional world number one also won an additional £2,000 after his 143 break in the semi-finals clinched the high-break prize.

But it was little consolation for the two-time Welsh winner as Selby, a finalist at last season's 888.com World Championship, prevailed by winning four frames on the spin for a remarkable victory.

The world number 11's pressure break of 48 in the deciding frame proved crucial as it won him this year's title in front of a packed house.

Selby and O'Sullivan battled for more than three hours before ending the first session deadlocked at 4-4.

That left both players requiring five more frames to claim the first world ranking silverware of 2008.

O'Sullivan began the contest as favourite - despite Selby's success at the Masters last month - but his patience was stretched to the limit.

When he was not at the table the unpredictable O'Sullivan could be seen drawing random patterns on a piece of paper.

It was not unlike their UK Championship semi-final when, prior to his superb maximum, O'Sullivan occupied his time by bizarrely counting the dots on a spoon.

Rarely has O'Sullivan been involved in a slower-moving final as methodical Selby tried his best to dictate the pace.

The 24-year-old, beaten in three of his four previous meetings with O'Sullivan, compiled a 77 break in the first frame then produced a 39 clearance to steal the second on the black for 2-0.

O'Sullivan finally came to life with a run of 50 in the third and drew level at 2-2 heading into the mid-session interval with a clearance to blue in the fourth having laid a clever snooker on the last red.

Those opening four frames took an hour and 34 minutes to complete and the exchanges remained equally bogged down on the restart.

During the fifth, which Selby won thanks primarily to a 51 break, O'Sullivan was twice spied mouthing 'I'm bored' to someone in the arena.

However, given his history of imploding in such tactical marathons, O'Sullivan did well to retain sufficient patience and concentration to secure an extremely scrappy sixth frame, which dragged on for 32 minutes, on the brown.

There was then further stalemate as both the seventh and eighth frames were re-racked by referee Eirian Williams after a tactical impasse in both.

When they actually got going, each of the afternoon's closing two frames featured sizeable contributions - 75 and 60 from Selby to regain the advantage at 4-3, 108 from O'Sullivan to tie up the scores heading into the concluding session.

Breaks of 93 and 135 made it 6-4 in only 18 minutes as the Chigwell potter stamped his authority on proceedings, but world number five Selby kept himself in touch with a pressure clearance of 72 to reduce his arrears.

However, O'Sullivan immediately hit back with a 63 break to make sure of the 11th frame, leaving him needing two frames for victory.

He took the next thanks largely to a 54 break, but Selby rallied to make it 8-6 after pinching the 14th frame as both players were guilty of missing routine pots.

And the Midlands man pulled even closer with a 62 break to trail by just one frame, before forcing a decider by winning the 18th frame by 14 points with some superb pressure pots after O'Sullivan had taken the early advantage with a 53 run.

Selby then pocketed a cool 48 break in the decider to lead by 30 points and, after O'Sullivan missed an ambitious double, Selby held his nerve to get over the winning line.