During the 2010s decade, Mark Selby sat atop the rankings for 7 years. One does not simply accomplish this by chance. Selby won 16 ranking titles that decade – more than any other player, and among these titles included 3 World Championships, 2 Masters and 2 UK Championships. If we had to choose a piece of that decade that belonged to Selby, it would certainly be 2014-17; and in 2016/17, Selby added his name to the history books in a couple of ways.
Selby eased into his first ranking title that season in late August, following a couple of early exits in the Riga Masters and World Open. Despite not being the greatest of starts for the man who just turned two-time World Champion, Selby managed to win his way to the Paul Hunter Classic with a 4-2 final victory over Tom Ford. This was still when the PHC was considered a ranking event, so for all intents and purposes, that’s ranking title number one.
The next ranking tournament that took place following the PHC takes us to Shanghai, where Selby would come up against recurring foe, Ding Junhui. Although Selby lost this final 10-6, it’s the only ranking final he has lost in the past six years. He hasn’t lost a single ranking final besides this one at Shanghai since winning his first world title in 2014. But that’s beside the point.
Nevertheless, Selby was able to exact revenge against Ding around one month later at the International Championship where he overwhelmed his opponent 10-1. In fact, no one besides Wenbo was able to challenge Selby throughout that event. Equally as impressive was Selby’s performance at the UK Championship another month later as he contested the final in a classic 10-7 against Ronnie O’Sullivan. Most may have seen the clip of the swerve shot played by O’Sullivan in various highlight videos. That was the match. This win landed Selby his tenth ranking title in total, and third for the season.
It would actually be a few months before we saw Selby again as he fell to a number of early exits in the tournaments that followed. However, he managed to bring out the guns when he needed them as we reach the final two events of the season: the China Open and World Championship. Many players like the China Open as it’s a test of form going into the World Championship immediately afterwards. And with a 10-8 victory over veteran, Mark Williams, Selby was buzzing with four ranking titles and a lot of confidence.
Then came Selby’s performance at the Worlds – which could arguably be considered as his best performance of all his wins. Unlike 2016, Selby wasn’t playing his B game that carried him to victory. He was on fire. Selby crushed his first three opponents, Fergal O’Brien, Xiao Guodong and Marco Fu. The former, who he was 8-0 up against, and the latter, who he won with a session to spare. His match against Fu also included his magnificent 143 break, which if you haven’t seen already, I highly recommend doing so.
The semi-final saw a repeat of the previous year’s final against Ding, as Selby was run very close for the first time in this tournament. Although a determined Ding was encouraged to fight back, it was Selby who prevailed as the winner with a 17-15 victory. However, his final match was where Selby truly showed true class and championship strength as he battled Crucible specialist, John Higgins from 10-4 down to win twelve out of the next fourteen frames and his third world title with a score of 18-14.
With this major victory, Selby had not only won his fifth ranking title of the season, equalling him with Ding and Hendry, but also won his third WSC in four years – something that hadn’t been done since the days of Davis and Hendry. What a way to win the 40th anniversary at the Crucible! At the time, we were all in wonder as to if we were going to see a continuation of WSC wins that matched the likes of Davis and Hendry. Although this wasn’t entirely the case, Selby was still able to win a further five ranking titles to close out the decade.
The main quality I admired about Selby during this season was his confidence as well as slight tuning of his game. His confidence and long potting both saw a spike as there weren’t many pots he was turning down, or even missing. He faced tough tests, all while being a target at No. 1 and showed the reason why he belonged there. Also, his claiming two of the three Triple Crowns that season.
As if anyone needed a reason to understand how Selby is an established Triple Crown champion, this season’s performance makes you look no further. Generally, when players win a Triple Crown, they don’t do particularly well in the events that surround the rest of the season. Selby performed in a manner comparable to Hendry, with three of his ranking final victories against the Class of ’92. And with nineteen ranking events to play for that season, Selby snatched just over a quarter of them. Selby was winning one of every five ranking events that took place in the 2016/17 season, and two of them were majors! So yeah, Selby owned the 2016/17 season.
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