Rate it!

7 votes

Mark Selby reveals in his Eurosport-Yahoo! blog that the best preparation for a major tournament is to practice against the other top names in the sport.

At the start of every season I set goals for myself.

As the number four in the world, I want to progress up the ranking and win more ranking events - that is obvious.

I reached the semi-finals in Shanghai at the Masters and played well, but I was very disappointed that I did not go further.

But I lost to Ian McCulloch in Northern Ireland and Ryan Day, who's playing very well, in the second round of the Grand Prix.

Ahead of the UK Championship next month I will practise on my own, as any player has to for long hours, but in the lead-up to it set up some practice games.

The best way to prepare for a major tournament is to play matches against the other players, people of a similar standard. That brings out the best in your game.

I'll give one of the guys close to me a call, someone like Nigel Bond, Michael Holt or Ding, and we'll play a best-of-17 game, like you play in a tournament.

A lot of this goes on among the players, as far as I can tell.

Sometimes you might ring someone like Michael Holt and ask him 'do you fancy a practice match tomorrow?' But he's already arranged to play someone else.

We try to take it seriously, to mirror the situation in a tournament, but there is a bit of banter.

No one would bring it up as something to be proud of - you would give them some grief if you beat them in a tournament, but not practice!

Having said that, we want to win. There is an advantage to be gained, which is why we play them.

If you happen to be playing Michael Holt in a ranking event and you know you've played him four times and beaten him four times in practice, it gives you a psychological boost.

Eurosport