Mark Selby beats Sam Craigie in cagey second round affair at Northern Ireland Open

Mark Selby beat Sam Craigie 4-2 in a cagey second round match at the Northern Ireland Open. It was a stop-start match as both players made errors and there was plenty of safety play, with Selby ultimately coming out on top. Ad He will play Hammad Miah or Lu Ning in the last 32.

Northern Ireland OpenWatch: Selby needs six attempts to get out of awkward snooker!40 MINUTES AGO The opening two frames, which took just under an hour, were shared with Selby winning the second despite needing six attempts to get out of a snooker. Craigie had opportunities to win the next two frames but failed to take them. He showed his frustration when missing a red in the centre pocket which was punished by Selby who went 3-1 up.

A huge fluke let Craigie in at the start of the fourth frame and this time he made a superb break of 111, which was the only century of the match. Craigie was unlucky in the early part of the next frame when he tried to split the reds open twice with the blue. Both times, he was left with nothing easy and his missed red to the middle let Selby in to make a break of 58.

“I got the win that was the main thing," Selby told Eurosport. «I feel like my concentration was in and out all of the way through the match for whatever reason. “The frames were quite open at the start, somebody would get in, breakdown then the next minute you’re run out of position so the frame just goes horrible.