Details emerge of Shaun Murphy and Kyren Wilson’s mystery Masters beef

Shaun Murphy beat Kyren Wilson in a compelling Masters final a year ago and three months later we were told that something unusual had gone on during the contest.

The Magician won the game 10-7, completing a brilliant week at Alexandra Palace, which also saw him knock in a maximum in the semis.

Wilson made a good fight of it, but Murphy was the player of the tournament andlifted the Paul Hunter Trophy for a second time.

In his post-match speech, the Warrior dropped some hints that he wasn’t in the best mood with the Magician, labelling the champion an ‘old man’ and saying he ‘needed the win more’ than him.

It felt like it might have been in jest, but just before the World Championship began in April, it became clear that Wilson was indeed vexed.

‘I think, if people knew the story, people would understand and probably actually applaud me almost for what went on in that final,’ he told TNT Sports.

‘Shaun knows full well what happened before the evening session of the Masters final. I don’t want to bad mouth anyone, but what he did before the evening session was uncalled for and quite unprofessional.’

The Magician was stunned by the accusation, saying: ‘I’m totally baffled by it. My phone lit up this morning when that was released. I was in the barbers minding my own business. I came out and my phone had gone nuts.

‘My mates were saying: “What did you do? What is the story?” I have got absolutely no idea. I am disappointed that he has chosen that now is the time to bring it up, whatever it is. He has had months to say something to me if he wanted to.’

The pair spoke during the World Championship and cleared the air, but neither revealed what actually happened.

But now Murphy explains that it was all down to the use of a practice table during the match.

‘It was a high-pressure moment. It’s a high stakes match. We’re both desperate to win it,’ the Magician told Metro. ‘You can fall out over the smallest of things, and certainly as far as I’m concerned, we never fell out.

‘He was upset that I used a table that I think he wanted to use. Tables are next to each other, I think one was slightly higher than the other. But listen, it was something over nothing.

‘Kyren and I get on great. We always have done, and hopefully we always will.

‘I think prior to the final, you would always book your practice table. Then with the final, I don’t think you either can or I don’t think either of us had reserved one specifically. It was just a miscommunication. That was all. It was just a mix up.’

Wilson said of the incident: ‘There was just a bit of confusion with it, really. I don’t really want to go into it, but basically, we had a lengthy phone call and both kind of apologised to each other and both had the mindset of, we can both can hold our hands up a little bit.

‘We’re on tour too long nowadays and just let bygones be bygones and that was it.’

The confusing part of the issue was that it came out so long after the event, and Wilson admits that was not intentional and he apologised to Murphy for the timing on the eve of the World Championship.

‘It was unfortunate, really,’ he said. ‘TNT did a World Championship preview, it was a massive full day with me and my family and I think they picked out a certain part of what happened at the Masters and then it blew up at the Worlds.

‘So I didn’t know it was going to happen. I did apologise to Sean because you’re going into a World Championship, you’re prepping for that. It’s not something that you need.’

Murphy has sympathy for saying the odd wrong thing at the wrong time, saying: ‘Nobody knows better than me…the amount of things I’ve said that I regret in high pressure situations because you’re stressed or a bit wound up about something else.

‘It manifests in a comment and you think, oh, I really shouldn’t have said that. I’ve certainly made a lot of apologies in my career and I’m sure there’ll be plenty more to come.

‘We chatted about it at the World Championship. We both said what we needed to say to each other and we put it to bed.’

Comments Add as preferred source