Mark Selby was pushing for the winning line in the Betfred World Championship final as Ding Junhui remained three frames off the pace.
The Leicester cueman won the final two frames of the afternoon session to lead 14-11 and was hoping it would be a night for a double celebration.
As he edged towards a second Crucible triumph, four frames from victory, Selby’s beloved Leicester City were willing for a Chelsea win over Tottenham that would give the Foxes the Barclays Premier League title.
Selby had breaks of 126, 52, 68 and 55 to counter the challenge from Ding, which must have been a major concern when China’s first snooker World Championship finalist closed up to 10-9 and then 11-10 behind.
In a match he has led throughout though, by 6-0 at one stage on Sunday, Selby provided the perfect response.
It was clear how much it mattered to him too. He swished his cue in anger at one point after missing a testing pink.
Joe Johnson, the 1986 world champion, leapt to the defence of the front-runner after Sunday evening’s session ran into Monday morning, finishing at 12.23am.
The pedestrian pace rankled with some spectators and television viewers, and seven-time world champion Stephen Hendry was as critical as anyone, writing on Twitter: “5 and a half hours for 9 frames, what the crap??!!!!!”
Steve Davis, the six-time winner and now a BBC pundit, said: “They played for so long yesterday and by the end of it I thought Mark Selby looked like the night porter from hell.”
But Johnson is a great admirer of Selby, who had stifled Ding’s Sunday night comeback by holding up the 15th frame with a demonstration of high-intensity safety play, laying a string of snookers that crushed the momentum his opponent was building.
Selby did not win that 66-minute frame, but he took the next two as a jaded Ding fell three behind overnight.
“If Mark Selby gets a rough deal from people, they don’t really understand what they’re talking about, because he’s the full product,” Johnson told Press Association Sport.
“That’s how you’ve got to be, to be world champion. You’ve got to be like granite and score heavily and play it tight, and try to destroy your opponent.
“I used to have a saying — ‘break their heart then take them apart’.
“Psychologically the 15th frame was big. Although Ding won that frame I think it really drained him mentally, and I think that was a turning point. Mark Selby didn’t give in.”
Ding’s breaks of 89, 103 and 52 on Monday afternoon were not enough to win him the session, and by emerging from it with the same lead he carried in, Selby looked a strong favourite to lift the trophy he first captured two years ago.
