Mark Selby victory lands Neil Robertson £150,000 payday as snooker pair share in spoils

Mark Selby was the 2025 Welsh Open winner but he was not the only snooker star celebrating his triumph in North Wales, with Neil Robertson landing a bigger prize as a result

Neil Robertson tipped his hat to Mark Selby after the Jester from Leicester’s Welsh Open semi-final win against Luca Brecel netted him a cool £150,000 bonus.

Before clinching the title himself, Selby’s victory over Brecel was music to Robertson’s ears. The Australian needed the Englishman to beat the Belgian to ensure he bagged the bonus for being the top earner in the Snooker Home Nations Series events.

The cash prize goes to the player who rakes in the most prize-winnings across the Welsh, Scottish, English, and Northern Irish Opens. As soon as Selby secured his win, the Aussie snooker ace took to Twitter to show his appreciation for this year’s Welsh Open champion.

Robertson posted “Mark Selby” with a love heart, celebrating hands and smiley face emoji. If Brecel had managed to beat Selby and then defeated finalist Stephen Maguire in Llandudno, he would have bagged both the £150,000 bonus and the £100,000 winner’s cheque.

But his semi-final loss meant he instead walked away with £21k, while Robertson laughed all the way to the bank. The World No.19 had set himself up nicely for the bonus by triumphing at the English Open back in September, where he survived a nail-biting fightback from Wu Yize to claim the title and the £100,000 that came with it.

He couldn’t quite nail it again in the home nations tournaments, only making the quarter-finals of the Northern Ireland Open and failing to get past the last 32 in Scotland and Wales. Snooker pundit Neal Foulds said Robertson was fortunate to win the £150k, telling Eurosport: “He’s kind of won it by default in a way.

“I mean, he’s obviously picked up more money than anyone else, but the amount of people that were queueing up to take it off him, and none of them did. It’s happened like that a couple of times now. So congratulations to him. He’s the rightful winner.”

Brecel’s disappointment in Llandudno had other consequences. He missed out on finishing in the top 32 of the one-year rankings. As a result, he did not make the cut for the World Grand Prix in Hong Kong from March 4th to March 9th.

The disappointed Belgian said: “I wanted to go to Hong Kong for the Grand Prix. But maybe it’s a bit of karma for not entering all the tournaments this year. I think I maybe skipped five or six tournaments.”