Allen wins ‘Battle of the Exes’ but city hero Ford crashes out
TENSE AND FROSTY CLASH BETWEEN FORMER PARTNERS
MARK Allen won the much-hyped grudge match in the opening round of the Matchroom.live British Open, coming back to beat his former partner Reanne Evans 3-2 at the Morningside Arena in Leicester, writes Paul Mason.
County Antrim’s world number 10 Allen and 12-time world champion Evans, who have a 14-year-old daughter together, had an acrimonious split in 2008.
Tensions boiled over at the 2021 World Championships in Sheffield, when former Masters champion Allen requested that Evans be removed from the practice room at The Crucible, while she was preparing for punditry work with the BBC, and Allen was practising for his first round match.
The clash was subject to a WPBSA investigation but Evans subsequently gained a full World Snooker Tour Card alongside Ng On-Yee as the top two players on the World Women’s Tour.
The open draw here threw Allen and Evans together, and it was a tense and frosty affair.
Dudley’s Evans refused a prematch fist bump from Allen, and, backed by vociferous support, Evans took a 2-1 lead with a 56 break, and was one ball away from a famous victory before “The Pistol” counterattacked. Evans missed what would have been a match-winning red along the cushion, and Allen pounced with a 47 clearance to force a decider.
He then made no mistake, as he took the final frame with a score of 68 without reply to book his second round place.
“It was awful, not one I want to do again,” Allen told ITV Sport after the match.
“She potted some unbelievable individual balls, but just struggled a bit with position.
“She was very unfortunate not to go on and win 3-1. I just wanted to play snooker.
“I got a chance in the last frame of a snooker match and that’s all it was to me.”
Evans said: “I was really proud of myself out there.
“I’m gutted, but proud at the same time. Women and the fans already know that I can play, and hopefully more girls and women start playing snooker and realise that they can do it too.”
World number one Judd Trump reached round two after a deciding frame win against Birmingham’s Mitchell Mann, ranked 97, who missed the final blue of the match that cost him victory.
Trump’s place at the summit of the rankings is under threat from Leicester’s world champion Mark Selby, and the the Bristolian is defending a large amount of prize money, namely £125,000, that he won at the 2019 International Championship.
Trump was far from happy though following his win over Mann, with playing conditions not to his liking.
“In the first frame, I was in the balls and I got the biggest bounce off the cushion that I have ever seen,” Trump told ITV Sport.
“It’s the difference between me getting into a rhythm, making maybe a century and feeling confident, and in the end, I’m frustrated with the conditions, so a little thing can be such a turning point”.
Leicester interest on Monday evening was provided by Tom Ford, but he made an early exit from the tournament as Tian Pengfei edged to a 3-2 win.
Ashley Hugill produced the shock of the tournament so far, the Yorkbased potter knocking out world number six Kyren Wilson.
Wilson knocked in a 101 break to open the match, and a 115 to force a decider, but it was Hugill who held his nerve, compiling a 57 break and withstanding an attempted Wilson counter attack to reach round two. Wilson, the 2020 World Championship runner-up, had only lost once in the first round in the whole of last season, and that was in the Tour Championship to Mark Selby, in what is only an eightman tournament. World number 16 Anthony McGill was defeated 3-1 by Zhao Jianbo, ranked 58 places below the Scot. McGill blamed a lack of motivation for his defeat, with the 30-year-old admitting that he is struggling for inspiration in tournaments away from the World Championship, where he has reached the semi-finals and quarter finals in the last two years, defeating defending champion Ronnie O’Sullivan this year.
Jimmy White, winner of the British Open in 1987 and 1992, advanced with a 3-0 win over Aaron Hill, while reigning Welsh Open champion Jordan Brown had breaks of 107 and 65, before a score of 83 gave him a lastframe win against Andrew Higginson.
In the first frame, I was in the balls and I got the biggest bounce off the cushion that I have ever seen
Judd Trump