Masters snooker champion Shaun Murphy has jokingly admitted how he now wishes he’d never revealed completing sport’s hardest hat-trick.
The potting ace previously told how he has the unique title of bagging a nine-dart finish at darts, a hole in one at golf and a 147 at snooker.
Murphy’s claim has since become a talking point on social media and even featured in a hilarious advertising campaign ahead of the Masters – which he won on Sunday.
Speaking exclusively to GB News, the 42-year-old said: “I will say we had a lot of fun with it in the build up to the tournament, Paddy Power got involved with it, and we were all over it.
Masters snooker champion Shaun Murphy has jokingly admitted how he now wishes he’d never revealed completing sport’s hardest hat-trick
GBNEWS
“We had a lot of laughs with it, but the amount of people who were up in arms about it on socials was hilarious, but it was a long time ago.
“I don’t play darts anymore, as recent footage shows, it’s awful these days, and I was never that good, if truth be told.
“But what can I say? It was a random night in the pub, and it’ll never happen again. Part of me wishes I’d never mentioned anything!”.
Murphy, now a top UK motivational speaker, is returning to the practice table today ahead of flying off to the German Masters.
Speaking to Eamonn Holmes and Ellie Costello he admitted he’d thought his days of winning majors were gone. But now, following his Masters success, he thinks he has an outside chance for the World title in April.
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He continued: “To be totally honest with you, I’d sort of thought that those days were numbered for me. I really thought those days had gone.
“It’s been such a long time since I competed for any of the majors in snooker. I’ve won events over the years, but those big ones, they’re a little bit different. They’re in a bit of a league of their own.
“I thought those days were gone, so I’m still in shock about it, to be honest. It still hasn’t sunk in at all.”
Asked about practicing, he said: “I think as you get older, the practice time goes down a little bit as you get other commitments in your life.
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“I’ve sort of started out in my own broadcasting career. I do the BBC events for them, I’ve got my podcast and all my socials and stuff like that. I’ve got my YouTube channel going on. I’m trying to practice as well for these events.
“It’s probably not nine to five anymore, but it’s every day, and I’ve had a couple of days off since the win at Ally Pally. Today is actually my first day back.
“I’m going to go to the ‘office today, going to get the cue out, see if I can still pot a ball after the excitement of the last few days, because we head to Germany on Sunday for the German masters. So we’re straight back on the bike and have no time to rest.”
On the World Championship, he continued: “I suppose it’s all totally changed now, following the win last weekend. I hope it doesn’t come across as a bit of a line, but my belief had totally gone that I could do that still.
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“I’ve paired up with Peter Ebdon. A lot’s been made of that. He’s helped me rediscover my self-belief.
“I’ll go to the World Championship now thinking that actually, I could win it. Whether I will or not obviously remains to be seen. There are plenty of good players who are going to try and stop me and win it themselves.
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“But in years gone by, you can kid everyone else, but you can’t kid yourself. And, you know, I perhaps had lost that belief and just didn’t really, truly believe it, whereas now I’ve got the trophy to show myself that actually I can still do it.”