Shaun Murphy’s defence of the Masters has been ended straight away by Wu Yize. Murphy, 43, beat Kyren Wilson in the final last year and would have been confident going into Alexandra Palace.
However, the Brit endured an arduous performance against the Chinese star and lost 6-2. His match was littered with numerous mistakes which were punished quickly by Wu. The youngster quickly took a 3-0 lead and never looked like letting it sleep. Murphy finished by taking two frames, but never got close to a century break. He looked set to extend the game and move within two legs of Wu in the final set, but another routine miss on the red resulted in the Chinese ace, who is making his debut at Ally Pally, seeing out the victory.
After the match, Murphy told the BBC: “I’ve looked forward to today for about a year. I really looked forward to that moment, walking out as champion.
“I enjoyed about the first ten minutes of it, but the rest of the match was highly unpleasant. I did not play well at all and it’s possibly the worst performance, certainly off my season, and perhaps of my history playing at the Masters.
“I’m very disappointed, gutted, in fact. Not just to lose, but to lose like that. It was very below par and, yeah, I am very disappointed.”
When asked what exactly went wrong, he said: “It would be easier to list the aspects which were there, none of it was there. It felt like everything I touched went wrong.
“None of my game performed well. But I have absolutely no idea why. I’ve been working very hard on my game, I’ve been practicing hard on a lot of snooker since the UK Championship.
“I didn’t expect to play like that so I am as shocked as anyone. But, I’m going to try and use Kyren’s (Wilson’s) inspiration from last year. After defeat, he went straight to Germany and won the German Masters. So, I’ll take a few days to lick my wounds and head to Berlin and try and win that one.”
Wu started brightly, only just missing out on a century break in frame one, before recording an impressive 138 to go 2-0 up. Despite the fact the 22-year-old had never played at the Palace, he made his way around the table like a seasoned pro.
At no point was Murphy allowed to put together two consecutive frames in a row to put the pressure on the youngster. He will face either Mark Selby and Xiao Guodong in the next round.