HIS JUST DESERTS
Allen welcomes Saudi cash boost
TOP Northern Irish potter Mark Allen expects snooker to be a major hit in Saudi Arabia.
Earlier this week, World Snooker Tour announced a blockbuster tenyear deal for the Saudi Arabia Masters.
The inaugural event will take place next season and boasts a hefty prize pot of over £2million, second only to the World Championship.
It is the second event to be announced in the country as snooker becomes the latest sport to cosy up to the Kingdom with the elite ten-man Riyadh Season Masters of Snooker invitational event being staged next month.
World No.3 Allen, who reached the last 16 of the Welsh Open with a fine 4-1 win over Si Jiahui last night, said: “It’s a ten-year deal and it’s a great market for us.
“The money sounds amazing. “Let’s not sugar-coat it, we want to win tournaments, but we have to pay bills and want to earn money.
“You never know what it could lead to in the region with the likes of Dubai and places like that.
“It’s a massive step in the right direction.
“It’s great to have another tournament on the calendar and a new territory.
We’ve been too reliant on China in the past and we saw how much of a loss that was in Covid when we couldn’t go there.”
WST announced it as the sport’s ‘fourth major’ and say it will sit among the long-established Triple Crown; World Championship, UK Championship and Masters.
But Antrim ace Allen insisted: “You don’t want to be seen to throw money at something then it becomes a major and it’s history.
“Events itself create history. There’s a long way go. I think the players would look at the Triple Crown as being a long way ahead of it.”
On the table, Allen won the battle of last year’s Crucible semi-finalists with breaks of 63, 76, 110 and 52.
But former champion Jordan Brown slipped to a frustrating 4-3 defeat to promising tour rookie Stan Moody.
The 2021 winner could not shake the talented teenager, who didn’t lead until winning the decider.
Aaron Hill (inset) scored a huge scalp as he dumped out four-time world champion Mark Selby 4-2.
The Cork cueman has proved he has got what it takes at the top level with big wins against Ronnie O’sullivan and Judd Trump. And he produced the goods once again in a near threehour battle with one of the game’s great tacticians.