page_title: Mark Selby
section_title: 2011–12 season
hierarchical_section_title: Mark Selby / Snooker career / 2011–12 season
caption_attribution_description: Mark Selby mit Siegerpokal beim Paul Hunter Classic 2012
context_page_description: Mark Anthony Selby is an English professional snooker player. He has been World Snooker Champion three times and was number one in the world rankings for more than four years continuously. He has won 17 ranking titles, placing him joint seventh on the all-time list of ranking tournament wins.
  Selby joined the main professional snooker tour in 1999 at the age of 16, after competing on the non-ranking UK Tour in 1998. He was runner-up to John Higgins at the 2007 World Snooker Championship. He was the sixth player to win all of snooker's Triple Crown events at least twice, having won three Masters titles, two UK Championships, and three World Championships. His other ranking titles are the Welsh Open in 2008, the Shanghai Masters in 2011, the German Masters in 2015, the China Open in 2015, 2017, and 2018, the Paul Hunter Classic in 2016, the International Championship in 2016 and 2017, the China Championship in 2018, the English Open in 2019, and the Scottish Open also in 2019.
  Known as a patient, tough competitor with strong safety play, Selby is also a prolific break-builder and has compiled over 600 century breaks in his professional career.
context_section_description: Selby started the season by winning the non-ranking Wuxi Classic with a 9–7 victory over Ali Carter. He continued his form at the Shanghai Masters, where he won his second major ranking event by defeating Mark Williams 10–9 in the final, having trailed 7–9.
  The win also meant Selby usurped Williams as the world number one, making him the ninth player to hold the top spot and the first to do so without having previously won the World Championship.
  He also won the minor-ranking PTC Event 4 (also known as the Paul Hunter Classic) with a 4–0 whitewash over Mark Davis, having edged out Ronnie O'Sullivan 4–3 in the semi-finals. Selby would later finish 5th on the Order of Merit and therefore qualified to the last 16 of the Finals. He beat Ding Junhui in the Finals in Galway before losing 0–4 to eventual winner Stephen Lee in the quarter-finals.
  Selby progressed to the quarter-finals of the German Masters and then reached the final of the Welsh Open, where he lost 6–9 to Ding. Another semi-final followed in the World Open and despite seeing a 5–2 lead slip to a 5–6 defeat against Mark Allen, he looked to be in form at just the right time in the season.
  However, Selby was forced to withdraw from the second round of the China Open with a neck injury. His withdrawal was also a precautionary measure to be ready for the upcoming World Championship, for which Selby declared himself fit the week before the event. He played Barry Hawkins in the first round and was beaten 3–10. After the match Selby admitted he had only managed nine hours of practice in the lead up and that there were certain shots he was physically unable to play. Despite the disappointing end to the season Selby was guaranteed to end it ranked number one following Judd Trump's early exit from the tournament.
caption: Selby with the 2012 Paul Hunter Classic trophy
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