Shaun Murphy's 10th ranking title a considerable achievement for a peerless snooker 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. Ad 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.

Players Championship'One of my biggest ever achievements' — Murphy 'over the moon' with 10th title4 HOURS AGO 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.