Shaun Murphy became ManBetXWelsh Open champion for the first time with a brilliant 9-1 demolition of Kyren Wilson in Cardiff.
Having come through a bruising and lengthy encounter with Yan Bingtao on Saturday night – one that didn’t finish until gone midnight – Murphy was entitled to begin Sunday’s final feeling a little jaded but he bossed proceedings throughout, beginning the opening session with a break of 108 before finishing it with a sublime clearance of 134 that ensured he would end the afternoon with a handsome 7-1 lead.
If Murphy got stronger the further he went in the tournament, Wilson looked a spent force from the moment the final got under way, never able to settle and producing an increasingly ragged display in the afternoon that left him facing an almost insurmountable task when play resumed in the evening session.
Any hopes he had of staging an unlikely comeback were immediately dashed when Murphy enjoyed a huge slice of luck in the first frame of the night, - frame nine - the 2005 world champion missing from distance only to see the red somehow find its way into the middle pocket.
Murphy then proceeded to produce another flawless demonstration of break-building to add his third century of the match, a silky run of 102 that put him on the cusp of his second ranking title of the season, before he closed out the match in typically ruthless fashion, Wilson in first with 56 but Murphy having the final say with a classy hand of 76 that saw him canter over the winning line.
Wilson began the day with high hopes of claiming his first title of what has been a largely frustrating campaign - Saturday’s semi-final defeat of Ronnie O’Sullivan ensuring the bookmakers made him favourite for the final - but his generally rock-solid long potting deserted him throughout as he failed to find anything like the form he has shown all week.
After watching on as Murphy opened up with breaks of 108 and 84, Wilson would have expected to finally get a foothold in the match when having good chances to win frames three and four but when he came out on the wrong side of both closely-contested frames, he quickly found himself facing a 4-0 deficit and with his title hopes already slipping away.
Despite making a break of 64 in the fifth frame, Wilson was again left to stew in his chair as Murphy picked his pocket once more to extend his lead to 5-0 and that scoreline soon became 6-0 as the latter motored round the table for another frame-winning contribution, this time of 76.
To his credit, Wilson rallied to get his first frame on the board in frame seven but Murphy reaffirmed his dominance to end the first session with a stunning response of 134, one that inflicted another hammer-blow on Wilson and all but ended the match as a contest.
When the players returned for the final act a couple of hours later, not even an untimely intervention from Storm Dennis that left the roof of the Motorpoint Arena badly damaged could dampen Murphy’s spirits, and after he raced to victory he was able to reflect another notable success in an already illustrious career.
Murphy told Eurosport afterwards: "I knew from the outset I had to be on my game and the other thing I have to say is that I thought I had every little bit of run today.
"I had all the luck it was just embarrassing. I'd love to say sorry but I'm not!
"I owe a lot of thank yous to some very important people, including my wife, my coach Chris (Henry). I had a lot of stern conversations in the summer about whether I still had it and whether I could still face it out there.
"They and a couple of others sort of nursed me back because I was almost gone. This is the first time I've won two ranking events in a season so that's special.
"It's not easy out here, it's quite gladiatorial, we're out here on our own, we don't have team-mates, we don't have caddies - it's quite difficult."
Wilson added: "I'm gutted I couldn't put on more of a fight than that but Shaun was absolutely fantastic all day long.
"He's outplayed me in the long potting, break building and safety so I hold my hands up, the better player won.
"Snooker's a tough sport, you've got to take these defeats on the chin and learn from them and hopefully come back stronger."