2015 Masters (snooker)

2015 Dafabet Masters

Tournament information
Dates	11–18 January 2015 (2015-01-11 – 2015-01-18)
Venue	Alexandra Palace
City	London
Country	England
Organisation	World Snooker
Format	Non-ranking event
Total prize fund	£600,000
Winner's share	£200,000
Highest break	Marco Fu (HKG) (147)
Final
Champion	Shaun Murphy (ENG)
Runner-up	Neil Robertson (AUS)
Score	10–2
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The 2015 Masters (officially the 2015 Dafabet Masters) was a professional non-ranking snooker tournament that took place between 11 and 18 January 2015 at the Alexandra Palace in London, England. It was the 41st staging of the Masters tournament, which was first held in 1975, and the second of three Triple Crown events in the 2014–15 snooker season, following the 2014 UK Championship and preceding the 2015 World Snooker Championship. It was sponsored by online bettig site Dafabet.

The participants were invited to the tournament based on the world rankings as they stood after the UK Championship. However, Ali Carter, who had been unable to take part in several events due to lung cancer, had his position amongst the top 16 frozen and was allowed to play, while Graeme Dott, who was 16th in the standing, had to sit out the event. Carter thus played his first match since being given all-clear from his illness. He received a standing ovation from the crowd before his first-round encounter with Barry Hawkins, which he won 6–1.

Ronnie O'Sullivan was the defending champion, having defeated Mark Selby 10–4 in the previous year's final. He equalled Stephen Hendry's career record of 775 competitive century breaks in his first-round match against Ricky Walden, on the exact date of Hendry's 46th birthday. Two days later, in the first frame of his quarter-final match against Marco Fu, O'Sullivan set a new record when he compiled the 776th century of his career. In defeating Fu 6–1, O'Sullivan also broke Hendry's record for the most wins in the Masters, setting a new record of 43. However, he lost 1–6 to Neil Robertson in the semi-finals. Shaun Murphy won his first Masters title, beating Robertson 10–2 in the final, the biggest winning margin in a Masters final since Steve Davis whitewashed Mike Hallett 9–0 in 1988. In winning the title, Murphy became the tenth player to win all Triple Crown events at least once. This year's final line up was a repeat of the 2012 tournament, albeit with a different result.

A total of 28 century breaks were compiled throughout the tournament. Marco Fu made the 112th official maximum break during his first-round match against Stuart Bingham. This was Fu's third official 147 and the seventh maximum break in the 2014–15 season. It was the third maximum break in Masters history, after Kirk Stevens's maximum in 1984 and Ding Junhui's in 2007.