Shaun Murphy

The 2008/09 season started miserably for Shaun Murphy – but it very nearly finished with the glory of snooker’s most prestigious ranking tournament ‘double’. The Sale-based potter, orginally from Irthlingborough, lost his opening match in the first four ranking events of the campaign, suffering defeats at the hands of Mark Williams, Andy Hicks, Adrian Gunnell and Mike Dunn.

Murphy’s fortunes were reversed in spectacular style at the next tournament, the Maplin UK Championship, as he became only the tenth player in snooker history to have won both the World and UK titles. He knocked out Martin Gould, Mark Allen, Stephen Lee and Stephen Maguire to reach the final, then got the better of a thriller against Marco Fu, taking a tense deciding frame for a 10-9 victory. Murphy was aided across the finish line by an outrageous fluke on the pink off the last red, as all of the bad luck he had suffered earlier in the season was repaid in one hit.

"There was more pressure out there tonight than there was when I won at the Crucible,” said the 2005 World Champion."When it went 9-9 I thought to myself that I just wanted one chance. As it turned out we both had about 19 chances.

”I’ve dreamt of winning the big titles and no amount of money can buy your name on the trophy. I’ve now won the two biggest ranking events, and I hope there are more titles to come, but if there aren’t I’ll still die happy."

Murphy built on his return to form with quarter-final appearances in the Welsh Open and Bank of Beijing China Open, and was counted amoung the favourites as the Betfred.com World Snooker Championship came around.

He endured a scare in the first round at the Crucible, coming from 7-6 down to win 10-8 against Andrew Higginson, but then went from strength to strength in beating Fu 13-3, Stephen Hendry 13-11 and Neil Robertson 17-14 to reach the final.

Up against John Higgins with the trophy at stake, Murphy suffered from fatigue in the early stages following his marathon semi-final against Robertson, and lost control of the match in the second session when six consecutive frames went against him. Murphy ended up an 18-9 loser, thus missing out on the chance to become only the fifth player to win the World and UK titles in the same season.

"It will take me some time to get over the fact that I’ve lost here,” said Murphy. “But I have had a good season, it will go down as the best season I’ve had so far. Winning the UK, doing well in the others, and coming here and nearly taking the title.

"All the great names have played and got beat in a world final, so I now know how they felt, and if it inspired them to go on and be better players, it will inspire me."

Murphy rewrote snooker’s history books with his extraordinary victory at the Crucible in 2005. As the world No 48, he was the lowest ranked player ever to win snooker’s biggest title. He was also the second youngest winner, after Stephen Hendry in 1990, and the second ever qualifier, after Terry Griffiths in 1979.

His route to the final took him past Chris Small, John Higgins, Davis and Ebdon then he came from 10-6 down overnight to beat Stevens 18-16, finishing the match in style with breaks of 97 and 83 in the last two frames. Viewing figures on BBC Sport peaked at 7.8 million. His second ranking title came at the 2007 Malta Cup when he beat Ryan Day in the final. At the 2007 Welsh Open, in a first round match against Jamie Cope, Murphy made century breaks in each of the first four frames (135, 123, 102, 101) – the first time that had been achieved in a ranking best-of-nine match.

Recognised as a prodigious talent in his junior days on account of his exceptionally straight cue action, long potting and break-building skills, Murphy was one of the first six World Snooker Young Players of Distinction and won the YPD of the Year award in 2001. In 2000 he won the B&H Snooker Championship, overcoming Stuart Bingham 9-7 in the final, to earn a wild-card entry to the Masters.

Away from the table, Murphy is a fanatical golfer and plays to a single figure handicap. He enjoys reading and music and is an accomplished piano player. He has been to Zimbabwe to raise money for charity and donate clothes to children.