China Championship snooker: Luca Brecel beats Shaun Murphy 10-5 in final

Murphy, the 25/1 pre-tournament tip of our Simon Crawford, had led 3-1 after hitting a century break to secure the fourth frame, but Brecel won four frames on the bounce to take control of the match.

Murphy was never to get to within striking distance and finished well beaten by the 22-year-old Belgian.

Brecel becomes the first player from continental Europe to win a ranking title and is now up to No 15 in the world rankings after taking the £150,000 first prize.

"It’s amazing, a dream come true," Brecel told worldsnooker.com.

"Especially to beat a player like Shaun in the final of such a big event. It was a massive moment to go 8-5 up because if it had been 7-6 it would have been very close. It means so much to me to win a tournament, especially beating a lot of good players and coming from 4-1 down to beat Ronnie [O'Sullivan].

"This is a big milestone because it puts me in the top 16 and gets me into other tournaments. This is what we need in Belgium because you can see what Kim Clijsters has done for tennis there – hopefully I can do the same for snooker. This is the first step.”

Murphy had the consolation of climbing up from from eighth to fifth in the latest world ranking sand admitted he had lost to the better player on the day.

"Luca fully deserved to win because he played much better than me throughout the day," he reflected. "My potting was bad, my safety was bad, my tactical play was bad, I just wasn’t good enough today.

"This will be the first of many for Luca. He’s the best player we’ve had from Europe, and we need more like him. Maybe his success will inspire others."

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