Shaun Murphy won the 2014 Bulgarian Open after a dominant Sunday display in Sofia.
The 2005 world champion began the day in confident fashion, scoring heavily in a 4-0 whitewash over Jimmy White, and became the big favourite after overcoming world champion Mark Selby to reach the semi-finals.
In the last four he repeated the 4-0 scoreline against a different White, this time Welshman Michael, before seeing off the challenge of Martin Gould in the final 4-2.
It marks Murphy’s third title of the calendar year following successes in the Gdynia Open and World Open at the tail end of last season.
Until his victory in Poland, there had been a substantial period of around three years before his previous tournament triumph.
This led to him questioning his performances at the latter stages of events, where he would often find himself falling short at the final hurdles.
However, the 31 year-old has shown more resilience and ruthlessness since then and, when he is in such a confident mood like he was in yesterday, he is very difficult to beat.
Murphy expressed the same kind of domineering demeanor that he possessed when he lifted the Crucible crown almost ten years ago.
Against Gould, he was trailing 2-1 before impressive runs of 82, 99 and 63 earned him his latest piece of silverware.
Gould had himself reached the final with wins over Ricky Walden, Mark Davis and Peter Ebdon.
Once again the crowds on the final day proved to be very good in Sofia as the Bulgarian Open, now in its third year on the calendar, continues to grow from strength to strength.
Next up is the invitational General Cup, which takes place in Hong Kong next week.
