Defending champion Shaun Murphy and three-time winner Mark Selby were honest with their assessments of how they performed as they each crashed out of the 2026 Masters on Sunday.
The pair of Englishmen were considered the favourites to progress from their round-one encounters at the Alexandra Palace in London.
Instead, however, it was a couple of debutants from China who advanced to the quarter-finals with Wu Yize and Xiao Guodong securing a brace of 6-2 victories.
Wu Yize reflected on his breakthrough Masters win →
Murphy, who stomped to Masters glory for the second time a year ago, was in particularly bad form with a series of sloppy errors gifting Wu several opportunities.
“I’ve looked forward to today for about a year,” a dejected Murphy told the BBC.
“I really looked forward to that moment walking out as champion. I enjoyed about the first ten minutes of it, and the rest of the match was highly unpleasant.”
“I didn’t play well at all. It’s possibly the worst performance of my season, and perhaps even in my history of playing at the Masters.
“I’m very disappointed – gutted in fact. Not just to lose, but to lose like that. I was very below par, and I’m very disappointed.
“It would be easier to list the aspects of my game that were there. None of it was there. It felt like everything I touched went wrong.
“None of my game performed well, but I’ve got absolutely no idea why. I’ve been working very hard on my game.
“I’ve been practicing hard and playing a lot of snooker since the UK Championship. I didn’t expect to play like that, so I’m as shocked as anyone.”
Despite the disappointment, Murphy is already looking ahead and pointed to last season’s runner-up Kyren Wilson as inspiration, referencing the Warrior’s immediate bounce-back victory at the 2025 German Masters.
“I’ll take a few days to lick my wounds and then to Berlin to hopefully try and win that one.”
Selby, meanwhile, was left to rue a slow start in which he lost all four frames before the mid-session interval, albeit he didn’t think there was much he could have done to prevent opponent Xiao from orchestrating that commanding lead.
“For the first four frames, other than the second one, I didn’t really feel like I had many chances,” Selby said in his post-match interview with Rob Walker.
“I didn’t have too many chances when clear in among the balls. Every time Xiao came to the table, I felt like I just made it easy for him.”
When the players returned from the interval, Selby compiled breaks of 101 and 76 to halve the deficit, but a key moment of the match transpired in the seventh frame when the UK champion botched a straightforward blue to the middle pocket.
“I played well to go 4-2 and got a good chance in the next one, and I’m just trying to grip the blue to hold for the red in the corner.” Selby continued.
“But I flicked a bit of side on it and missed it high. If I win that frame, I fancy winning the match. Because I felt like I had a little momentum.”
“I missed that and Xiao did what he did the whole match – he punished my mistakes. I’m gutted, because I’ve come here playing well.
“I feel good. Even though I’ve lost, I still feel good in my game. It’s just one of them to forget, I think.”
A quarter-final between Wu and Xiao, meanwhile, ensures that there will be at least one Chinese player and one debutant in the Masters semi-finals this year.
The first round continues on Monday with two more games, a battle of the former champions between Mark Williams and Mark Allen, and a showdown featuring world champion Zhao Xintong and Gary Wilson.
Featured photo credit: WST
Two upsets to start! Not that any match at the Masters is ever a true upset but Murphy and Selby would have been the standout names for the season so far. Murphy played as badly as I can remember from him. Well done to the two winning debutants.