Opinion: Murphy’s 10th ranking title a huge achievement for a peerless ambassador

All Shaun Murphy has ever wanted to do is play snooker. A boyhood fascination, the game still consumes him.

When he won the 2020 Welsh Open, thrashing Kyren Wilson 9-1 in the final, life seemed good. It was his second ranking title that season and ninth in total, and there was every reason to be positive about the rest of the campaign.

A few weeks later, the circuit was suspended due to the Covid-19 pandemic, and Murphy entered the darkest period of his career. His capture of the Players Championship in Wolverhampton on Sunday evening – his first title since that 2020 win – finally brought some closure to a frustrating time.

Everyone suffered during lockdown but Murphy’s experience was especially difficult. A resident of Dublin, due to quarantine laws he was not allowed to go home from events, and so he had to spend long periods on his own in Milton Keynes, away from his wife and young children.

Food became an easy refuge, and an ongoing neck and back complaint left him struggling to walk. After more than two decades on tour, his professional future looked bleak.

Things turned around to a degree at the Crucible in 2021 when Murphy reached his fourth World Championship final. He had been inspired by the return of the spectators. A snooker fan to his core, they were his kind of people and they helped him turn around his semi-final against Wilson before Mark Selby beat him 18-15.

In fact, this did not lead to a full-scale revival in fortunes. Murphy’s results last season were poor, with just one semi-final appearance in the whole campaign.

Something had to change. His weight had long been an issue and had led to unpleasant abuse online. Murphy decided to make a drastic change, having gastric sleeve surgery to limit his capacity to eat.

Slimmer when the new season dawned and feeling better about himself, he had some encouraging wins. “My game is trending in the right direction,” he said several times in events leading into the Welsh Open earlier this month.

The clear evidence he was right to be so positive came in his last-16 victory over Daniel Wells where he made breaks of 145 and 147 in successive frames, an extraordinary 20 minutes of snooker.

He entered the final in Llandudno as the favourite against Robert Milkins, but he failed to reproduce his earlier heroics and was beaten 9-7. Undeterred, he arrived in Wolverhampton still positive, ready to go again.

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Murphy made four centuries against Ryan Day, two more against Wilson and a further five in beating Ali Carter 10-4 in the final. This was an awesome display of scoring: 11 centuries in the 28 frames he won during the week. At the World Championship, where the champion must win 71 frames, the centuries record is 16.

Murphy grew up obsessed with snooker. As a young boy, he was invited to play exhibition frames against leading players before matches at the Premier League, and he impressed with his talent and precocious self-confidence.

He turned professional a few weeks before his 16th birthday, but he dropped off the tour after one season and took a couple of years to return. He won the qualifying event for the Masters in 2000 and reached the 2004 British Open semi-finals, but he was still inconsistent and there was little sign of a big breakthrough as he pondered whether to even continue with his playing career.

All that changed over 17 days in Sheffield when he became only the second qualifier to win the World Championship.

His potting was phenomenal, but it was his poise at the Crucible, a venue which has turned some of the most famous legs in snooker to jelly, which impressed. Level at 16-16 with Matthew Stevens in the final, he finished off with two frame-winning breaks.

He had achieved a boyhood dream at 22. It took some time to adjust to his new status, but he added the UK Championship to his CV in 2008 and the Masters in 2015. His Players Championship triumph netted him his 10th ranking title, becoming only the 11th player to have won this many.

This is a considerable record of achievement – far better than most – but it still leaves him behind his main two contemporaries in terms of age, Selby and Neil Robertson.

However, where Murphy leads the way is in his ambassadorial duties. He has a genuine love of snooker and a burning desire to help it in any way he can. For this, he deserves praise. Some players are very keen to criticise but less inclined to help out.

World Snooker Tour recently arranged for a player to visit a local school in Cheltenham during the World Grand Prix. When the day dawned, they cried off. Murphy stepped in at the last minute and saved the day – for the kids and for snooker itself.

Active on social media, despite its sometimes less than friendly atmosphere, he also has his own podcast. He always speaks positively about the sport. He is grateful for it.

He has drawn some criticism for doing commentary and punditry work during tournaments he is still involved in, even on days he is playing. In fact, this is nothing new. Dennis Taylor was the lead commentator for ITV on the 1985 British Open final. A few weeks later, he became the world champion.

The days at snooker tournaments can feel long if you aren’t playing. Once players have practised and had some lunch, they inevitably end up watching the snooker. At least Murphy is being paid for it.

Last week, he over-egged it as a studio guest after his first-round win, complaining too loudly about pundits blaming players’ concentration for missing. He went away and took stock, coming back with apologies.

No one really minded. Everyone who works in the sport recognises that he is still a fan at heart, prone even at the age of 40 to becoming over-excited.

Winston Churchill once defined success as “going from failure to failure without any loss of enthusiasm”. Regardless of his struggles over the last few years, enthusiasm for snooker was the one commodity Shaun Murphy was never going to lose.

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