In a semi-final that looked set to be remembered for the farcical scenes that led to the longest frame in Crucible history, Mark Allen produced a defining moment so heartbreaking that the 100-minute marathon became a mere footnote.
Allen had one foot and four-and-a-half toes in the World Snooker Championship final when he potted a spectacular long pink while leading Wu Yize 16-15 and landed perfectly on the final black. Black on its spot, cue ball perfectly positioned – it’s a simple pot that Allen makes 100 times out of 100. Except on this one, most important occasion.
Pressure does funny things to even the greatest sportspeople. Perhaps the prospect of reaching his first world final after almost 20 years of trying suddenly dawned on him. Perhaps his cue arm twitched. Or perhaps the magnitude of the moment proved too much. Whatever the reason, the black rattled in the jaws and stayed out. The capacity Crucible crowd gasped, Allen dropped his head in disbelief and a completely baffled, almost scared look crossed his face.
Wu tapped the black in to force a decider and a moment that may haunt Allen for the rest of his life was shared with the world in gut-wrenching HD. How do you recover from that?
“You don’t deserve to be in the world final if you’re missing balls like that,” admitted Allen afterwards. “That was just pure pressure to be honest. Normally I‘m pretty good under the pressure but just didn’t handle it well today.
“I was probably more nervous at different stages of the match than I was on that black. I just threw a quick one in, I genuinely did. I just didn’t deliver the cue properly and I got what I deserved when you miss a black like that to win the match.
“I had two, three chances to close out the match and didn’t do it. But credit to Wu.”
To his credit, the Northern Irishman composed himself enough to make a handy break of 47 in the decider but was unlucky when a split of the pack failed to leave him on a red and, after a couple of attempts, Wu made an incredible clearance of 71 to snatch victory 17-16, becoming just the third Chinese player to reach a world final, where he will face Shaun Murphy, who is into the final for a fifth time
“The final frame was another opportunity to win,” explained Allen. “I was fine going into it – win the next frame, that’s what I always say. I was a little unlucky when I potted the pink, split the reds but didn’t land on anything. But I had more than enough chances to win.
“At the end of the match, I just wished Wu good luck and said he played very well. I think he’s going to be a world champion.”
Allen was clearly shattered at missing such a golden opportunity to reach a world final but his graciousness extended to claiming that the better man had won.
“Even though I’m devastated to lose that match, I think the right person is in the final,” conceded Allen. “The way he plays is great for the game, scores heavily, pots some ridiculous balls and doesn’t seem to mind the pressure.
“He stepped up and made a good clearance at 16-14 and then did what he needed to in the last. If he doesn’t win this one, I think he’s going to win many world titles.”
The way Allen and Wu brushed off the debacle of Friday’s 100-minute frame, where 55 minutes went by without a pot as the black and eight remaining reds all clustered round the corner to create a situation described as an embarrassment by six-time world champion Steve Davis, was impressive.
Two incredibly high-quality sessions of snooker followed as the pair traded big breaks in a much more fluent game and were never separated by more than a frame as the race to 17 reached 14-14.
From there however, Northern Ireland’s finest managed to find another gear and move within a frame of victory at 16-14 before Wu pulled one back, then the drama of the missed black and the decider followed.
Zhao Xintong became the first Chinese world champion in history 12 months ago and now Wu is just one match away from matching him
His attacking style of snooker should match up with Murphy’s similar approach and the best-of-35 contest may well deliver fireworks. Allen is certainly expecting the younger man to put up one hell of a fight.
“Wu will fancy the job. Absolutely no doubt,” added Allen. “I think it will be an open final and I think that will suit Wu Yize to be honest.
“The way you can probably get out against Wu is to do a bit tactically. I was probably hanging in the match because of that, but I’m not really sure Shaun has that.
“Shaun’s absolutely capable of blitzing Wu Yize, don’t get me wrong, but if Wu plays like he did against me over those four sessions, he’s going to be hard to stop.”
How Allen bounces back from this devastation next season will be fascinating to see but in the meantime, two days of drama as Wu and Murphy go head to head promises to be an epic encounter.
