Selby sails to PTC2 win

Mark Selby won the season's second Player Tour Championship on Sunday.

The world number nine stormed back from 3-1 down in the final against Barry Pinches to claim the trophy.

But after some fine snooker throughout the competition, he'll go into the rest of the season full of zest.

On route to this triumph, he passed some stern tests including matches with Shaun Murphy, Marco Fu and Jimmy Robertson.

Selby now joins Mark Williams as a PTC winner and a player with building expectation of a successful year on the circuit.

We'll soon find out whether victories here translate into good form at the bigger events.

But for now, I've decided to take these events with a pinch of salt.

While I'm sure it's nice for the players to get their hands on some silverware early doors, ranking points aside, the events are in place merely as warm-up tools.

It's great for the sports' supporters and an added extra for the players' wallets. So, I'll embrace them nonetheless. But I'm sure the players are with me when I say they're a nice bonus, but just a rehearsal to more important challenges that await down the line.

The results were coming in thick and fast over the weekend.

It's taken me some time to digest them all myself. And in case you missed anything, here's the stand out stories from the eyes of OnCue...

For many, inclduing myself, Pinches was a surprise finalist.

But he defeated Stuart Bingham, Gerrard Greene and Alfie Burden to more than earn his place.

Elsewhere, only last week I was talking about Liam Highfield when asked who the game's brightest future stars are.

He proved his pedigree again here with some impressive results on route to the last 16.

The 19-year-old swept aside Judd Trump, Tom Ford, Joe Jogia and Adam Wicheard before falling foul to Jimmy Robertson.

Another man who would have been happy with his trip to the last 16 is Stephen Craigie.

The 20-year-old Geordie, who only turned pro in 2008, took the prized scalp of Jimmy White this weekend, which should rank up alongside many of his achievements in the game so far.

But he lost out to an impressive Stuart Bingham who would have been pleased to make it as far as the last eight.

The world number 29 was eventually knocked out by Pinches but most notably overcame Jamie Cope and Joe Swail on a tricky path.

Gerrard Greene wasn't taking any prisoners as he steamed into the semi-final.

Wins versus Ricky Walden, Mark King and Matthew Stevens shows he's a player worth considering for a rise up the rankings this term.

Aside from the weekend's star performers, fans were treated to the usual amount of shocks too.

PTC1 winner Williams struggled to replicate his fine form of a fortnight ago.
Mark Davis dumped him out at the last 64 hurdle.

Joe Perry didn't make it past this round either, losing 4-1 to Trump. And Ali Carter was another who fell here to an improving Peter Lines.

That wasn't the end of the early casualties though with Peter Ebdon going down to Shaun Murphy in a tasty early tie.