2008 Masters (snooker)

2008 Masters (snooker)
The 2008 Masters (officially the 2008 SAGA Insurance Masters) was a professional non-ranking snooker tournament that took place between 13 and 20 January 2008 at the Wembley Arena in London, England.
Mark Selby won the tournament on his first attempt by defeating Stephen Lee 10–3 in the final. In the final frame, he tied Ken Doherty for the highest break of the tournament, recording a total clearance of 141.
This was the first time since 2003 that Ronnie O'Sullivan had failed to reach the final; the defending champion lost 5–6 to Stephen Maguire in the first round.
Facts and figures
Ryan Day potted 15 reds and 14 blacks in his wild-card match against Barry Hawkins before attempting a long black in an attempt to achieve a 147, instead of potting a straightforward brown and getting an almost assured 144.
Peter Ebdon also was on for a 147, but missed the last-but-one red in his quarter-final match against Stephen Lee.
Ding Junhui won his match against John Higgins 6–4, needing a snooker in the last frame with the last 5 colours remaining.
Mark Williams scored his first century of the season (a 118) in winning the first two frames against Ken Doherty, before losing the next six.
Ken Doherty was 4–1 down to Shaun Murphy, but made three centuries in four frames in winning 6–5.
Seven matches went to a deciding frame (6–5).
Two first-round matches went to the last black: Stephen Lee's match against Graeme Dott, where he came from 5–2 down to win 5–6; and Marco Fu also won on the black in defeating Neil Robertson.
Mark Selby won three deciding-frame matches in reaching the final, coming from 5–3 to beat both Stephen Hendry and Stephen Maguire 6–5, and he also beat Ken Doherty by the same scoreline in his semi-final.
Michaela Tabb became the first woman to referee a Masters final. She had already refereed the Welsh Open final in 2007.
Field
Defending champion Ronnie O'Sullivan was the number 1 seed with World Champion John Higgins seeded 2. Places were allocated to the top 16 players in the world rankings. Players seeded 15 and 16 played in the wild-card round against the winner of the qualifying event, Barry Hawkins (ranked 19), and wild-card selection Marco Fu (ranked 27). Mark Selby was making his debut in the Masters.
Prize fund
The breakdown of prize money for this year is shown below:
Qualifying stage
Winner: £2,000
Runner Up: £680
Semi-final: £250
Quarter-final: £105
Total: £3,600
Televised stage
Winner: £150,000
Runner-up: £68,000
Semi-final: £34,000
Quarter-finalist: £16,000
Last 16: £12,000
Last 18 (wild-cards): £2,000
Highest break: £10,000
Maximum break: £25,000
Total: £460,000
Wild-card round
In the wild-card round, the qualifier and wild-card players played the 15th and 16th seeds:
Main draw
Final
Qualifying
The 2007 Masters Qualifying Event was held between 7 September and 12 September 2007 at the English Institute of Sport in Sheffield. The winner of this series of matches, who qualified for the tournament, was Barry Hawkins.
Century breaks
Main stage centuries
Total: 23
141, 132, 125, 124, 107, 103 Mark Selby
141, 123, 114, 101 Ken Doherty
135 Ding Junhui
120, 113 Ryan Day
118 Neil Robertson
118 Mark Williams
112 Ronnie O'Sullivan
107 Graeme Dott
105, 103 Stephen Maguire
105 Peter Ebdon
105 Stephen Hendry
104, 100 Marco Fu
Qualifying stage centuries
Total: 27
140 Jamie Burnett
137, 104 Liu Chuang
136 Anthony Hamilton
135, 123, 109, 107, 103 Jamie Cope
125 Joe Perry
122, 110 Kurt Maflin
119, 113 Judd Trump
114, 105 Andrew Higginson
114 Jimmy White
110, 102 Mark Allen
110 Xiao Guodong
107, 104 Ricky Walden
107 Joe Delaney
103 David Gilbert
101 Andrew Norman
100 Alfie Burden
100 Nigel Bond
References
2008
Masters
Masters (snooker)
Masters (snooker)
Masters (snooker)