Mark Selby aiming to correct poor Irish record at Northern Ireland Open

Mark Selby makes the trip to Belfast this weekend for the Northern Ireland Open looking to tick one bizarre anomaly off his career bucket list.

The man they call the 'Jester from Leicester' is yet to reach the final of a WST tournament played in Ireland, north or south, never mind winning one.

It all started at the Irish Masters, when it was at Citywest, back in 2003 where he would lose in the first round to Stephen Hendry. He was knocked out by David Gray and Jimmy White at the same stage over the next two seasons, before the event fell off the tour.

DCU's Helix Theatre, Galway's Bailey Allen, and the Killarney Convention Centre were to welcome pro tournaments in the early years of the next decade, but still Selby couldn't make it to a decider.

The best he could muster were semi-final appearances in Kerry and Dublin, with Martin Gould and Judd Trump tripping him up, before Belfast took over the hosting of the island's only WST event.

2018 was his best year at the Waterfront Hall, reaching the last four, and pushing the game's greatest ever player all the way, before eventually losing 6-5 to Ronnie O'Sullivan.

"Who knows, if I'd won that (the deciding) frame, I might have won it that year," he tells RTÉ Sport, reflecting on the defeat to The Rocket.

"It's gone and you can't dwell on the past so we'll look forward to this week. I'm playing ok so hopefully I can have a good run there."

Indeed Selby's form has picked up at the start of the new campaign, with his victory at last month's British Open his first ranking title in 18 months.

For many of the players on the tour, a tournament triumph every season or two would be enough to keep them going - but not for Selby.

If the 1980s was the decade of Steve Davis, and Stephen Hendry was