Mark Selby advanced through to the last 32 of the 2026 British Open on Wednesday morning after edging Lei Peifan 4-3 in Cheltenham.
A lengthy encounter took more than 3-and-a-half hours to finish, with master of brinkmanship Selby fighting back from behind to clinch victory in a deciding frame.
Indeed, it was his second 4-3 win of the week already having previously edged David Lilley by the same narrow margin on Tuesday.
It has been a good period of form for Selby, who won the China Open in August and backed it up with a run to the quarters in Wuhan last week.
But travelling back to the UK has taken its toll with not much time to recover before the latest ranking tournament commenced.
“It was brutal. I feel like I’ve literally hit the wall, I’ve got nothing left,” Selby told 5.
“I’ve been waking up at all hours every night. I feel like I’ve run my race, but I always give it everything.”
“It doesn’t matter whether I’m feeling fresh or whether I’m feeling fatigued, I always try to make my opponent beat me.”
The brutal schedule doesn’t get much kinder for Selby, who is back in action on Wednesday evening when he encounters Jackson Page for a spot in the last 16.
The four-time world champion admitted that he hadn’t even been aware of his potential double fixture until late on Tuesday night.
“I didn’t know that until last night,” Selby added. “I had the football on the iPad and the snooker on the TV.”
“I fell asleep, woke up at half 11 at night, and I’ve two messages from Paul Collier saying that if I win tomorrow, I’d have to play again at 7pm.
“I assumed I was playing two games on Thursday. But it’s irrelevant – at some stage you have to play two games, because I had a day off.
“Can’t wait for it, can’t come around quick enough!” Selby then joked sarcastically.
Earlier this week, Shaun Murphy lambasted the World Snooker Tour’s decision to stage a three-tournament Chinese swing on the calendar and follow it up immediately with a tournament back in the UK.
“As far as I’m aware, nobody asked for what we got,’ Murphy told Metro Sport.
“I know from when I was chairing the Players’ Association, this is something we discussed at length with WST and we were always told back-to-back events in China weren’t possible.”
“By back-to-back, I mean one finishes on one day and another starts 24-48 hours later in another city.
‘We were told for many different reasons that couldn’t possibly happen. One of those reasons was the vast distances in China, they are phenomenal.
“But as I said to the representative from WST, none of those distances are as great as the distance from Wuhan to Cheltenham.
“There was only 24 hours between that event and this event. So I’m not sure their argument holds a great deal of water.
“As far as I’m aware, no players wanted three events in China that cost us the guts of six weeks.
“There’s a few days out before, you’ve got the events themselves, and then there was at least a week between events.
‘We weren’t out for three back-to-back events, we were out for nearly six weeks. I don’t know anyone who wanted that.”
Murphy, the reigning British Open champion, faces David Gilbert in the last 64 on Wednesday at the Centaur.
Featured photo credit: WST
