Mark Selby blasts Ronnie O'Sullivan after beating him 9-3 in Scottish Open final

Victory gave Selby a 19th ranking-title success of his career, and second of the season, but meant that O’Sullivan’s 55th ranking-final appearance ended in defeat at the end of a match in which he was always second best.

Selby looked the form horse coming into the showpiece having knocked in three centuries in his semi-final victory over Jamie Jones, and while he didn’t quite scale those heights 24 hours later, he dictated terms from the outset and had breathing space from the moment he claimed a crucial eighth frame after O’Sullivan missed a simple, straight red when looking sure to clear and reduce his arrears to 5-3.

Resuming for the evening session with a healthy 6-2 advantage, Selby was in first – a running theme of the day – in frame nine after O’Sullivan had again missed from distance, and the defending champion firmly closed the door on any hopes of a comeback, faultless breaks of 78 and 51 extending his lead to five.

O’Sullivan continued to fight, but his grimaces grew more and more regular as he struggled to claw his way back into the match, though he did win the 10th frame in two visits, a run of 62 doing the majority of damage.

The 45-year-old threatened to pull another frame back when quickly building a 45-point lead in frame 11, but a missed red with the rest allowed Selby back to the table and he went on to hammer another nail in O’Sullivan's coffin, despite missing the final green off its spot.

When the green ran safe and left O’Sullivan snookered, he again arched his eyebrows, but it made no difference and even though he would eventually pot the same colour from distance, the following brown was fiendishly difficult and proved a bridge too far as Selby mopped up to move 8-4 ahead.

Though the final is one O’Sullivan will probably wish to forget, he did threaten to steal Selby’s limelight just a little when potting eight reds and eight blacks in frame 12 and looking well-set to make a 147 maximum break until breaking down when appearing in little trouble.

Ruthless as ever, Selby displayed ice-cool nerves to clear the table with a brilliant, match-winning break of 76 that completed a handsome and quite remarkable 9-3 triumph that went some way to avenging last summer’s dramatic World Championship semi-final defeat to O’Sullivan.

The day began as the form book suggested it might, Selby laying a wicked snooker before claiming the early bragging rights with a hand of 56.

When O’Sullivan hit straight back with a typically fluent run of 72, those watching at home would have had high hopes for another classic encounter between these two giants of the game, but that would be as good as it got for the Rocket.

With the help of a fine 102 in frame three, Selby won the next two frames and really ought to have claimed the fifth, a rare lapse allowing O’Sullivan to counter with a clearance of 52 that kept him in touch.

However, after Selby added breaks of 50 and 77 to swell his lead to 5-2, O’Sullivan failed to grasp a lifeline when Selby broke down within touching distance of chalking up another frame.

A beautifully-potted red along the bottom rail appeared to have helped O’Sullivan navigate his final obstacle to keep his title hopes alive, but when he inexplicably missed the following red, Selby jumped on the mistake to close out the frame in what ultimately proved to be the decisive moment of the contest.

Try as he might, O’Sullivan would never recover and when Selby kept his cool to pot the final black a few hours later, the Stephen Hendry Trophy was his once more.

Events took an unfortunate twist afterwards as both players accused one another of gamesmanship during the match.

“He tried to carry on, which he did in all the other frames,” Selby said about one frame which he had won.

“The ref actually announced that it was a frame to me and said you couldn’t carry on after that.

“I’m sure Ronnie would have carried on, he’s been doing that all week when he’s 120 behind on the yellow.”

Selby said O’Sullivan had deliberately moved into his eyeline when playing a shot early in the match.

“I’m playing a long red into the corner and he stood up,” Selby said.

“I could see him in my eyeline and just as I’m about to play the shot he started chalking his cue quite loudly.

“I got off up the shot and looked at him and he raised his eyebrows as if to say ‘sorry I didn’t realise I was doing it’.

“But he knew exactly what he was doing and I managed to play the shot and potted it."

O’Sullivan then complained that Selby was tapping his water bottle in the fourth frame when he was playing a shot.

“He thought I was chalking my cue and putting him off, but I wasn’t even in his eyeline,” O’Sullivan said. “I was in my chair when he was playing a safety shot.

“I found that a bit strange, so when he started doing that (tapping his water bottle) I thought ‘I might as well pull you up’.

“So I said ‘any chance you can not do it when I’m on my shot?’ But there’s no issue between me and Mark, I think we have to thank each other for driving us to be better players.”

Selby countered: “I went to have a drink of water when Ronnie wasn’t even down to play his shot.

“He was still stood up deciding what to play and when I put it down he still hadn’t got down to play his shot.

“He was saying to the ref I was making noises and moving, similar to what he was doing to Mark Allen. I think that was because I was getting on top of him and he was getting agitated. He doesn’t like it if people compete with him.”