Mark Anthony Selby MBE is a snooker player from England. He has achieved the world number one ranking several times and won 22 ranking titles, which puts him in eighth place on the all-time list of ranking tournament winners.
Selby has won the Masters three times, the UK Championship twice, and is a four-time World Snooker Champion.
These achievements give him a total of nine Triple Crown titles, which places him on par with John Higgins, and behind only Ronnie O’Sullivan (21), Stephen Hendry (18), and Steve Davis (15).
Selby began his professional career at the age of 16, after winning the England Under-15 Championship in 1998.
He made his debut at the Crucible in 2005 and reached his first World Championship final in 2007, where he was the runner-up to John Higgins. Selby won his first major title at the 2008 Masters and his first ranking title at the 2008 Welsh Open.
Between 2014 and 2017, he won the World Championship three times in four years. Selby first became world number one in September 2011, and held onto the top ranking position for just over four years between February 2015 and March 2019.
He has compiled more than 750 century breaks in professional competition, including four maximum breaks.
Selby is not just a snooker player; he is also a pool player. In 2006, he was the World Eight-ball Pool Federation champion, and he was the runner-up at the Chinese Eight-ball World Championship in 2015. This makes him the only player to have been world champion in both snooker and pool.
In 2002, Selby reached the semi-finals of the China Open, despite leaving his hotel room at 2 a.m. instead of 2 p.m. for one of his matches because of jetlag.
A year later, he reached his first ranking final at the Scottish Open, where he finished runner-up to David Gray, earning himself a place in the top 32 for the first time.
Although he progressed to the final round of qualifying at the World Snooker Championships in 2002, 2003, and 2004, he failed to qualify for the knockout stages at the Crucible Theatre on all three occasions.
Selby’s performance in the 2006–07 season earned him a place in the top 16 for the first time for the 2007–08 season, where he was ranked 11th.
At the 2007 World Championship, his victories over Stephen Lee, Peter Ebdon, Ali Carter, and Shaun Murphy won him the inaugural 888.com Silver Chip award for outstanding performance, awarded by the Snooker Writers’ Association.
In the final, John Higgins led 12–4 after the second session, but Selby won all six frames played in the third session on Monday afternoon before time ran out due to the length of the frames.
Although he was only 10–12 behind entering the final session, he eventually lost the match. Higgins pointed out in his victory speech that Selby was “the most improved player on the tour”.
In 2023, Mark made it to the Finals of the World Championship where he competed against Luca Brecel.
Mark Selby Wife: Meet Vikki Layton
Mark shelby is married to Vikki Layton, they have a daughter together.
Vikki is a former Irish International pool player and she regularly attends Mark’s major matches.
The couple first met in 2006 and got engaged in August 2010.
Vikki and Mark tied the knot in Cancun, Mexico in May 2011.
Aiva Arthur
