Matthew Selt (born 7 March 1985) is an English professional snooker player originally from Romford, east London and now living in Chelmsford, Essex.
Selt played in his first professional final in 2014 at the minor-ranking Lisbon Open, which he lost to Stephen Maguire, and has reached five quarter-finals in full ranking events.
[2] He made an important breakthrough at the start of the 2009–10 season by reaching the last 32 of the Shanghai Masters by winning four qualifying matches, ending with a 5–4 victory over Steve Davis.
He also impressed at the Grand Prix, by recovering from 0–4 against Jordan Brown to win 5–4 and going on to beat Jimmy White, Stuart Pettman and Fergal O'Brien to reach the final stages of a tournament for the second time in succession.
[4] In the last 32 he played reigning world champion John Higgins and pulled off the biggest result of his career to date by overcoming a deficit of 1–4, to triumph 5–4 and win a televised match for the first time.
The match went into a deciding frame with Selt again building a 55–0 lead and this time hanging on to seal his place in the first round, where he met world number one Mark Selby, losing 4–10.
[15] Selt failed to qualify for the opening four ranking events of the 2013–14 season, but then whitewashed Chris Norbury 6–0 to reach the first round of the International Championship, where he lost 6–3 to Martin Gould.
[16] His best result by far in the minor-ranking European Tour events came at the final tournament, the Gdynia Open as he whitewashed three opponents 4–0 and beat Judd Trump 4–1 in a televised quarter-final, before losing by the same scoreline to Shaun Murphy in the semis.
After the event, Selt stated that he had been neglecting his game for the last two years by occasionally practising two or three hours and that he believed his ranking of 50 would be 20 or 30 places higher if he had played to his true ability.
The deciding frame lasted 55 minutes and Selt took it on the final blue and then edged past Mark Joyce 5–4 to reach the quarter-finals of the event for the third time.
[27] However, Selt rose to a career-high 27th in the world rankings soon afterwards and credited his improvement in play to his coach Chris Henry, his mentor Stephen Hendry, as well as his own personal fitness.
He only won one match at the venue stage in the next nine ranking events, before reaching the third round of the Gibraltar Open with victories over Rory McLeod and Stephen Maguire.
[37] In July 2019, Selt reached the semi-final of the Riga Masters after wins over the likes of Jimmy Robertson, Lu Ning, and Mark King before being defeated by the eventual champion Yan Bingtao.
[39] Selt reached another semi final of a ranking event after defeating Stephen Hendry, Barry Hawkins, Kyren Wilson, Soheil Vahedi, and Chris Wakelin before losing to the eventual champion Judd Trump.