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Neil Robertson vs Mark Selby: 25 Wins Each and a Belfast Quarter-Final

Published 2026-10-12

Neil Robertson and Mark Selby have played each other 51 times as professionals. Robertson has won 25, Selby has won 25, and one was drawn. On frames Selby is ahead by six, 213 to 207. After thirteen years and three finals, there is still almost nothing between them.

The Northern Ireland Open draw could put them on the same table again. Selby is seeded 5 and Robertson 4, and they sit in the same section of the top half at the Waterfront Hall. If both win three best-of-7 matches, they meet in a best-of-9 quarter-final. The quarter-finals are exactly where Robertson's season has gone wrong.

2013, the year they kept meeting

Their three finals all came in one calendar year. In January 2013 Selby beat Robertson 10–6 to win the Masters at Alexandra Palace. Robertson trailed 8–3, won three frames in a row to get back to 8–6, and then lost the last two. In April he won the China Open final 10–6, and in December he beat Selby 10–7 for the UK Championship. Both ranking finals between them went to Robertson.

Since June 2025: two each, but not evenly

We hold the full record of their four meetings since June 2025. It splits two wins each, with Selby ahead on frames, 18 to 12.

  • Saudi Arabia Masters, last 16, August 2025: Robertson 6–4, finishing with a 137. He went on to win the event, beating Ronnie O'Sullivan 10–9 in the final.
  • Champion of Champions, semi-final, November 2025: Selby 6–2, with a 127.
  • Championship League, January 2026: Robertson 3–2 in a best-of-5 group match.
  • China Open, quarter-final, August 2026: Selby 6–1.

The last of those is the best guide to where they stand now. In Taiyuan, Selby won the first four frames with breaks of 56, 114, 85 and 51, while Robertson scored 50 points across all four. Robertson made a 122 to win frame five, and Selby closed it out with 137 and 97. Selby then beat Stuart Bingham 6–2 and Noppon Saengkham 10–6 for the China Open title.

Robertson's quarter-final problem

Robertson has reached three quarter-finals this season. He has won two frames in them.

  • Shanghai Masters: lost 6–0 to Zhao Xintong.
  • China Open: lost 6–1 to Selby.
  • Wuhan Open: lost 5–1 to Zhao.

That is 2 frames won and 17 lost. Before the last eight he has been steady: nine wins from twelve matches, including three in a row at Wuhan over Ben Mertens, Hossein Vafaei and Liam Davies.

Last season looked nothing like this. Between June 2025 and the end of April he won six of his nine quarter-finals, at the Saudi Arabia Masters, the Champion of Champions, the Riyadh Season event, the UK Championship, the German Masters and the Tour Championship. Three heavy defeats is a small sample, and two of them came against Zhao. It does mean Robertson goes to Belfast without a quarter-final win since April.

Selby keeps winning the close ones

Selby's season has gone the other way. He won the China Open, reached the British Open final, where Jak Jones beat him 10–6, and has won 20 of his 25 matches.

The short matches tell their own story. Of his seven best-of-7 matches this season, six went to a deciding frame. He won five of them: against David Lilley, Lei Peifan and Jackson Page at the British Open, then Ricky Walden and Zhang Anda at the English Open. The one he lost was 4–3 to Kyren Wilson. Last season only three of his fifteen best-of-7 matches went the distance.

You can read that two ways. Winning five deciders out of six is the habit that gets a player through the first three rounds in Belfast, which are all best of 7. It also says Selby hasn't been winning these matches comfortably, and any run of deciders ends somewhere.

Robertson has played only two best-of-7 matches this season and lost both, 4–1 to Pang Junxu and 4–3 to Luo Zetao. Last season he won nine of eleven, so this looks like a short run rather than a weakness.

The road to a meeting

Selby opens against Louis Heathcote on Sunday 18 October. Our match page for Selby v Heathcote makes him an 82% favourite. Hossein Vafaei or Matthew Selt would come next, then one of Xiao Guodong, Ali Carter, Sam Craigie or Xu Si.

Robertson plays Ricky Walden on Sunday evening, rated 67% on the Robertson v Walden page. Joe O'Connor or Matthew Stevens would follow, then the winner from a section with Chris Wakelin, Elliot Slessor, He Guoqiang and Jamie Jones. Wakelin beat him 5–2 in the last 16 of the Shenzhen Open eleven days ago.

The Form Rating has Selby third and Robertson tenth going into the week. That gap fits the 6–1 in Taiyuan better than the 25–25 career record does. If they do reach the quarter-final, Robertson would be facing the player who has beaten him most recently, in the round he hasn't got past since April. The full Belfast schedule has every first-round match, and our preview of the event covers the rest of the draw.