World champion Kyren Wilson registered his 500th career century – and revealed he didn’t know he had reached the milestone.
The snooker star, who will defend his world championship at the Crucible later this year, eventually got the better of Fu 4-3 after taking full advantage of a mistake from the 2016 Scottish Open champion in the deciding frame – wrapping up the success in style with a century, and booking a second round meeting with Joe O’Connor.
But speaking to the BBC after his victory, Wilson admitted he didn’t know about the milestone achievement – and confessed he’s still well shy of the world’s top century scorers – with Ronnie O’Sullivan, Judd Trump and Wizard of Wishaw John Higgins all registering more than 1,000 in their glittering careers. He said: “I didn’t know that was my 500th career century, so it’s a nice little landmark but I’m still a million miles behind the top boys with 1000, but it’s not bad going.
“It was nice to do it under pressure, Marco came back at me really well from 3-1 ahead and played some great snooker. He made a fantastic 139 to level up. When he missed the brown I knew I had to take my chance because he was cueing really well and I knew I wouldn’t get another chance.
“I felt like the balls weren’t splitting very kindly for myself and Marco, but the table played really nice. Normally when it plays that nicely the balls burst open, but we were just stuck on the odd ball and had to play it safe or play a risky one to keep going. My nature is to play attacking, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t, but as long as I get through to the next round that’s all that matters.”
Dominic Dale meanwhile felt that veteran Fu lost his cool under pressure in the decider, he said: “The problem for Marco is that it’s been quite a while since he contested a match like this, and you have to be familiar all the time with pressure situations to deal with them, and he isn’t as used to as Kyren is. Kyren was given the opportunity and he didn’t need another one. That’s what world champions do.”