World Snooker Championship LIVE: Brecel leads Selby in Crucible final

The Belgian’s safety leaves an opportunity for Selby, who he takes with an impressive long bounce. White ends up behind blue and Selby settles for a snooker but it’s a wonderful escape from Brecel shooting it from two cushions, kissing the open red and settling on the cushion at the bottom of the table, beautifully played.

Right after that big frame, it’s a bad break from Selby as he catches the blue. Brecel makes the most of it and returns to put the red opening of the box. He can’t split the reds enough with his barrel and opts for a safety after a break of 16.

He can take advantage! Much has been made of Brecel’s shots in this final, but those are some of the best we’ve seen from Selby today. He has sent the entire board chasing the reds and rolls another against black to further split the reds.

His break ends in blue, but he’s done enough with a break of 78 to win the frame and he’s much needed at that.

Brecel produces a glorious double into the center pocket and a neat cutback, but has no luck on the cue ball both times. On the last occasion, he attempts a bold cross blue effort that goes awry and Selby comes back to the table and takes advantage: he moves to the 20 and a cannon in the pack splits the reds nicely for the Englishman. Will he be able to make the most of it?

Brecel fires on the initial red again with a beautiful cut to the left center pocket, but a poor miss follows on the next red and it’s only six points accumulated by the Belgian. Selby misses a long-range red on the table, but nothing is available for Brecel.

Brecel aims for the easy reds, but soon finds himself out of options. Don’t worry, as it’s a glorious shot into the brown that moves the cue ball around the table and back to prime position. He eventually settles for a safety and a break of 67.

Needing two snookers, Selby starts with a beautiful pair of red and black dribbles, but then misses and the Englishman concedes the frame.

Two more to go for Brecel and he shows no signs of slowing down…

Brecel begins the afternoon session right where he left off this afternoon. Selby sniffs it out with average confidence and the Belgian makes the most of it with a sumptuous long dribble into the bottom left pocket for the first red of the frame.

The players are out and a reminder of the stakes.

Luca Brecel had never won a match at the Crucible before this year. Now the Belgian is just three frames away from snooker’s biggest prize and a chance to become continental Europe’s first World Champion.

Mark Selby became the first person to break 147 in the World Championship final yesterday and will now aim for a remarkable comeback in this final session to win his fifth world title.

The handshakes are over and Selby gets us going…

And we are back! What an evening awaits us and the start of the final session is fast approaching.

If you’re just tuning in, then you missed a wonderful afternoon session earlier that day at The Crucible that left Luca Brecel on the brink of his first world title.

The Belgian Bullet won six frames out of eight with four hundred, meaning he now needs just three frames in this final session to triumph over four-time champion Mark Selby.

Having won the first four frames in the turn, Brecel trailed after the mid-session interval with Selby winning consecutive frames. But the final two frames and the session overall belonged to Brecel, who won the final two frames in superb style to move ever closer to a shock victory.

Selby already has some money locked up this year after notching a famous top break of 147, the first time it’s been done in a Crucible final. He will share the prize for a 147, as well as the tournament’s highest break bounty, with Kyren Wilson, who also accomplished the feat in the first round.

Four-time world champion Selby has earned £7.2 million in career prize money so far, while Brecel has earned £1.3 million, according to Cuetracker.

Find out the full prize money for the World Championship: