Hong Kong Masters starts with bang as Marco Fu shines, John Higgins sparkles, Mark Selby fumes
- Local favourite Fu, absent from the snooker tour during the pandemic, comes good on his home tournament’s first day, with Selby left ‘bamboozled’ by the table
- Higgins shares an evening match of high quality with Judd Trump, edging it to set up semi-final with Fu
Marco Fu Ka-chun gave hometown fans the start they wanted at the Hong Kong Masters on Thursday in an opening match seemingly precision-engineered for the organisers, before Judd Trump and John Higgins ratcheted up the excitement.
Facing four-time world champion Mark Selby in the first quarter-final, Fu – who has slipped to 100th in the rankings after barely playing during the pandemic – was fluid and assured in a 5-2 win.
But Selby said afterwards that he “didn’t think I could ever win that game”, having been “bamboozled” by conditions on the table, with the cloth being “unlike anything I’ve ever experienced before”.
“I basically had to try to change my game, which is obviously difficult when you’ve been playing certain shots the same way for over 20 years,” he said.
“Everything I played with a bit of sidespin, the white ball went all over the place. I didn’t really know how to play the shots.”
