Mark Selby’s (English Snooker Player) Daughter Sofia Maria Shelby and Wife Vicky Layton
Sofia Maria Shelby, the lone child of English snooker player Mark Selby and Vicky Layton, was 8 this year.
Since her birth, Sofia Maria Shelby and her father, international snooker champion Mark Shelby, have shared a close relationship. The birth of the English snooker player and his wife, Vicky Layton’s daughter, seems like it happened only yesterday.
The recent celebration of her ninth birthday by the pair was captured in a Facebook post by an unofficial Mark fan group. On the Facebook page, they have pretty much covered every aspect of his life.
The World Snooker Champion expressed his happiness at becoming a father for the first time when the couple announced they were expecting their first child in 2014.
Aside from that, the father-daughter team seems to get along great; the trio is frequently seen together after his league victory.
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Who Is Sofia Maria Selby?
Sofia Maria Selby, a descendant of Mark Selby, turned 8 Sofia Maria Shelby, the daughter of Mark Shelby, was 8 this November. She was born on November 11, 2014.
Even though Mark and his ex-wife always desired a family, the papa bear appeared to appreciate his little princess more than his own life.
Shelby also talks about the particulars of their pregnancy in an interview, as well as how they felt at the time.
Vikki took a pregnancy test long before that, and the results revealed that she was indeed pregnant. In 2014, Shelby reported that his wife was twelve weeks along with a November due date.
The pair was anxious to tell their fans the news even before their daughter was born, and they have said they will paint the nursery once they learn who their child is.
Vicky Layton, a former international Irish pool player, was the wife of Mark Shelby and participated in two snooker tournaments between 2003 and 2004.
She competed in the WEPF Ladies World Championship in Blackpool and the Ladies European Championship in Jersey in 2003, according to express.co.
Similar to the former event, Vikki took part in it and made it to the semifinals before falling to rival pool player Barbara Taylor.
Despite having a limited professional pool playing career—she only took part in a few tournaments—she now seems to be following her goal thanks to her spouse.
Although Vikki no longer plays pool, she still supports her husband at all of his snooker matches.
Mark Selby Bio
Four-time World Snooker Champion Mark Anthony Selby MBE is an English professional snooker player. He was born on June 19, 1983. He has held the top spot in the world rankings numerous times, and his 20 ranking tournament victories rank him ninth all-time among players who have won rankings. He has won the Masters three times, the UK Championship twice, and four world championships in total, putting him on equal with John Higgins and just three Triple Crown winners behind Ronnie O’Sullivan (21), Stephen Hendry (18), and Steve Davis (15).
At the age of 16, Selby began his career as a professional in 1999 after winning the England Under-15.
Championship in 1998. He first competed in the Crucible in 2005, and in 2007, he lost to John Higgins in the World Championship final. The 2008 Masters gave him his first major victory, and the Welsh Open gave him his first ranking victory. He won the World Championship three times in four years, from 2014 to 2017. He has held the top spot in the world rankings numerous times; his first time was in September 2011 and he kept it constantly for more than four years between February 2015 and March 2019. In professional competition, he has amassed more than 700 century breaks, including four maximum breaks.
Selby is the only man to have won the world championship in both snooker and pool; he was the World Eight-ball Pool Federation champion in 2006 and finished second at the Chinese Eight-ball World Championship in 2015.
Career of Mark Selby
Selby, a 1998 England under-15 champion, entered the professional tour the following year at the age of 16 in 1999.
Due to jet lag, he had to leave his hotel room for one of his matches at 2 a.m. rather than 2 p.m., yet he still made it to the semi-finals of the China Open.
In April 2003, when he was 19 years old, he played in his first ranking final at the Scottish Open, where he lost to David Gray and entered the top 32 for the first time.
He made it to the World Snooker Championships’ last round of qualification in 2002 and 2003, however he was unable to advance to the knockout rounds at the Crucible Theatre on both occasions.
Mukesh Parmar, a former snooker professional and fellow Leicesterite, guided Selby beginning in late 2005.
He advanced to the main draw of the 2005 World Championship, where he was defeated by John Higgins 5-10.
At the 2006 World Championship, he met Higgins in the first round once more and won 10-4. He subsequently lost to the Grand Prix and Masters champion, Mark Williams, in the second round.
Selby competed in the 2007 World Championship final but lost to Higgins 13–18.
He defeated Stephen Lee 10-7 in the opening round after coming back from 0-5 down to lead 8-5 in eight straight frames.
To advance to the quarterfinals, he overcame Ali Carter 13-12 in a third-round match that lasted more than nine hours, coming from 11-8 ahead and 11-12 behind. He had previously upset former world champion Peter Ebdon 13-8 in the first round.
He defeated Shaun Murphy in the semifinals 17-16 after falling behind 14-16 in the penultimate game, which he won with a 64 break.
Selby was only 10-12 down going into the final session, but he closed to within one frame at 13-14 before ultimately losing the match. John Higgins led 12-4 after the second session of the final. However, Selby won all six frames played in the third session on Monday afternoon before time ran out due to the length of the frames.
In his acceptance speech, Higgins noted that Selby was “the most improved player on the tour.”
Selby was placed 11th in the 2007–2008 season as a result of his accomplishments in the 2006–2007 season, which helped him break into the top 16.
Selby received the first 888.com Silver Chip award for excellent performance from the Snooker Writers’ Association for his victories at the 2007 World Championship over Lee, Ebdon, Carter, and Murphy.
He competed well in the 2007 UK Championship, making it to the semifinals where he faced eventual champion Ronnie O’Sullivan. O’Sullivan made a 147 break in the decisive frame to win the match 9-8 after Selby had led 7-5 but trailed 7-8 and 8-8 before leveling the score.
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2008–2011
Selby at the Moscow 2008 World Snooker Championship
Selby won his first big competition on January 20, 2008, at Wembley Arena in London’s Masters.
On his way to the final, he defeated Ken Doherty, Stephen Maguire, and Stephen Hendry all by a combined score of 6-5.
In the championship match against Stephen Lee, Selby gained control after trailing 5-3 at the half and rattled off five straight frames (eight in a run overall, from 2-3 down) to secure a resounding 10-3 victory. In the championship game, he displayed excellent play, totaling four century breaks; his final-frame effort, a total clearance of 141, matched the highest break of the competition.
On February 17, 2008, Selby won the Welsh Open, becoming the top-ranked player in the world. He defeated O’Sullivan in a hard-fought final 9-8 after coming back from 5-8 down.
Despite being one of the betting favorites for the 2008 World Championship, Selby was upset 8-10 by Mark King in the opening round. He was unable to repeat his Crucible win from the previous season.
The next year, during the Welsh Open quarterfinals, he received a writ from a spectator who claimed to be his former manager George Barmby.
Prior to being defeated 3-5 by Anthony Hamilton, Selby remarked that his only thought was the envelope that had been presented to him. He again advanced to the Masters final, falling to O’Sullivan 8-10 after leading 7-5, and he again advanced to the 2009 World Championship quarterfinals, falling to Higgins 12-13, who went on to win his third world championship.
Selby overcame a 4-8 deficit to defeat Jamie Cope 9-8 in the opening round of the 2009 UK Championship, but fell to O’Sullivan 3-9 in the quarterfinals.
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After making the final three times in as many years, he won his second Masters championship on January 17, 2010, in a rematch of the final from the previous year, in which he had lost to O’Sullivan. Selby took the following four frames to win the championship 10-9. This time, O’Sullivan needed one more frame to win after going down 6-9.
Despite moving ahead 10-11 and 13-14, he was defeated by Graeme Dott in the semi-finals of the 2010 World Championship, falling just short of reaching his second World Championship final.
Selby defeated Ricky Walden in the Six-red World Championship final by a score of 8-6 in Bangkok in July 2010.
He defeated Tian Pengfei, Robert Milkins, Ali Carter, and local favorite Ding Junhui in the 2011 China Open before falling to Judd Trump 8-10 in the championship match.
In his second-round clash with Hendry at the 2011 World Championship, he established the record for the most century breaks made in a world championship match with six.
This created a new record for the most centuries accumulated by one player in a single season with 54, and it was also a record for a best-of-25-frames match. Vicky and Mark were wed. Vicky Layton, Shelby’s wife, and he wed in Cancun, Mexico, in May 2011 after a number of years of dating. He first asked Vikki out on a date in 2006 after meeting her on the professional circuit. This was the beginning of the couple’s initial love affair.
Before they began dating, the pair was well acquainted. Their friendship served as the foundation for their relationship; after a few occasions of hanging out, they became close friends, and the rest is history.
After leaving Ipswich, Vikky and her hubby relocated to Leicester. Similar to how Mark proposed to his girlfriend aboard a gondola in Venice in 2010, a year after they started dating.
He stated that they celebrated Valentine’s Day in the world’s only seven-star hotel, the Burj Al Arab in Dubai, the year before. I suppose she thought I was going to pop the question at that point.
Mark also acknowledged that he had missed a slot and would need to push himself a little farther to beat that goal.
Mark Selby And Vicky Shelby’s Age Gap
Vicky Shelby, Mark Shelby’s wife, is five years older.
Vicky Layton, whose age was listed as 36 in 2014, is five years older than Mark Shelby, her husband. The couple’s age difference was discussed in the article by the Leicester Mercury.
She is currently 44 years old, and according to the information in that article, she was born in 1978. Mark, on the other hand, was born in Leicester, England, on June 19, 1983, making him 39 years old at the moment.
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