The 28-year-old beat Mark Selby 18-15 to win his first World Snooker Championship title
When Luca Brecel first appeared at the World Snooker Championship 11 years ago, as an extravagantly talented 17-year-old, he made a bold prediction, said Aaron Bower in The Guardian. By the age of 19, the Belgian said, he would be crowned world champion. The prophecy didn’t materialise: until three weeks ago, Brecel had suffered first-round defeats in each of his five appearances at Sheffield’s Crucible Theatre. Yet on Monday, the boy from Dilsen-Stokkem, who first picked up a cue at the age of nine, finally made good on his promise. In an enthralling final, he survived a “nerve-shredding” fightback from “snooker’s granite-like grandmaster”, Mark Selby, to prevail 18-15. Brecel is the first world champion from mainland Europe, and – at 28 – the youngest winner at the Crucible since Shaun Murphy in 2005.
