and China Open for personal reasons. Returning to the tour at the World Championship in April, he beat Robert Milkins 10–6, Sam Baird 13–11, and Kyren Wilson 13–8, to face Marco Fu in the semi-finals. Selby drew level at 12–12 after winning a 76-minute frame, the longest in Crucible history, and won the match 17–15 with a successful on the in the final frame. He took an early 6–0 lead over Ding Junhui in the final, eventually winning the match 18–14 to claim his second world title. With his World Championship victory, Selby finished at number one in the world rankings for the fifth consecutive year. 2016–17 season Selby won his first ranking title of the season at the Paul Hunter Classic, beating Tom Ford 4–2 in the final. His semi-final against Stuart Bingham at the Shanghai Masters in September, was a meeting between the top-two ranked players in the world, Selby winning 6–5, having trailed 3–5. After taking an early 3–1 advantage over Ding Junhui in the final, he eventually lost the match 6–10. The following month, he was defeated 2–6 by Judd Trump in the semi-finals of the European Masters. He then won 9–3 in another semi-final encounter with Bingham, to reach the final of the International Championship in Daqing, China, winning the event for the first time by overcoming Ding 10–1; Selby dominated their encounter, winning all of the last seven frames, in the most one-sided ranking event final since the 2012 World Open when Mark Allen had defeated Stephen Lee by the same scoreline. Selby made seven 50+ breaks, while Ding's highest was just 47. At the UK Championship, he defeated John Higgins 6–5 in a high-quality quarter-final match that lasted five hours; Selby won on the colours in the deciding frame. After despatching Shaun Murphy 6–2 in the semi-finals, he developed a 7–2 advantage over Ronnie O'Sullivan in the final of the event, which decreased to 7–4, followed by four breaks of 130 or more over the next five frames—two by each player—bringing the score to 9–7 in Selby's favour. He finished the match with a 107 break to claim his second UK title, completing the second Triple Crown of his career. After failing to progress to the semi-final stage of any of the next seven tournaments, he made it through to the final of the China Open in April, where he took the final