Murphy kick starts season with Belgium win

Shaun Murphy has been much maligned for his slow start to the season.

Minus a 5-1 crushing of Ding Junhui in the Premier League, it's been pretty much bad news for The Magician so far.

But this weekend, he went to Belgium and conquered at the EPTC2 tournament. It's his first trophy of the season, and there was nothing hollow about it either.

On route to the final, he staved off in-form Mark Williams and six-time world championship finalist Jimmy White, who stunned world number one Neil Robertson earlier in the competition.

Then in the showpiece, he saw off Matt Couch 4-2.

Couch, ranked number 58 in the world, enjoyed a good run to the final and beat another of the competitions shock candidates, Fergal O'Brien, in the semis. This was after his best win of the weekend came in the last eight against Ricky Walden.

Murphy was tipped to challenge for all the major honours this season. But after early exits in both Shanghai, he's already become under pressure.

He's always been a good pressure player, and he showed it again this weekend. Murphy has terrific temperament. It was on show in abundance in Bruges.

With rivalry hotting up for players to make it into the top 24 in the order of merit, Martin Gould, Liang Wenbo and Bjorn Haneveer all did their hopes the world of good with trips to the quarter-final.