Mark Allen quits match with 11 reds left on ‘disgusting’ World Grand Prix table
Mark Allen faces a fine from World Snooker after conceding a match-winning frame with 11 reds still left on the table at the World Grand Prix.
The former Masters champion was 3-1 down to Ali Carter and trailing 20 points to two in the fifth frame when he missed a straightforward yellow and screwed the white ball back into the middle pocket.
The Northern Irishman immediately conceded the frame, and with it the match, to gift Carter a place in the quarter-finals, where he will play David Gilbert.
Asked if he regretted his actions, Allen said: “Not at all. I don’t regret much that I’ve done over the years.”
Describing the condition of the match table as “disgusting”, Allen added: “It’s out of character but it’s just the way I felt today. What’s the point of the audience watching me miss more and more?
“I felt like I had to hit the ball so hard to move the white. It was really heavy and then you get annoyed because you look over at table two and it looks to be playing beautifully. I think if I had played on I would have smashed my cue up.”
Allen, who is sixth in the world rankings, later took to Twitter to apologise for his performance: “Bad day at the office. Sorry to anyone who had to watch that..”
Carter told ITV4: “We both started missing a lot and I think Mark missed the yellow there and he just saw red. We’ve all done it and fortunately for me it gives me the match, but I didn’t want to win like that.
“We all make mistakes. I read in the paper the other day that Sergio García hacked up a couple of greens and went into one in a bunker and you think to yourself ‘What’s he got to worry about?’
“But you get so entrenched in what you’re doing and you are so frustrated, because it is your life. This sport is my life and golf is Sergio’s life and it doesn’t make an excuse but it gives a reason.”
The World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association rules state that “each member shall perform and compete to the best of his ability in each tournament in which he competes” and players are subject to disciplinary action if they concede a frame it is mathematically possible to win.