Mark Allen Profile
Full name: Mark Allen
Birth date: 22nd February 1986
Born in: Antrim Town, Northern Ireland
Nickname: THE PISTOL
Known for: His belligerent style of play and a pumped-up attitude around the table.
Mark Allen (born 22 February 1986) is a Northern Irish professional snooker player. He won the World Amateur Championship in 2004. The following year he turned professional and took only three seasons to reach the elite top 16. Entering the 2010/2011 season, he was ranked 10.
A left-hander, Allen’s highest break to date is a 146 which he has achieved twice, once in the 2007 UK Championship qualifiers and at the 2010 World Snooker Championship. His break-building style is a little unorthodox in the modern game, in that he rarely goes into the pack of reds early in a break, preferring to pick off loose reds and establish a lead.
More on Mark Allen, scores, results, events and tournaments.
Before turning professional for the 2005/2006 season, Allen won the European Championship and the IBSF World Championship, plus Northern Ireland Championship at under-14, under-16, and under-19 levels. His early career was aided by National Lottery funding.
In the 2007 Northern Ireland Trophy he gave his home supporters plenty to shout about, by beating Graeme Dott 5-3, Ryan Day 5-3 to reach his first ever quarter-final. In it he defeated Gerard Greene 5-3 to reach the semi-final, where he lost 3-6 to Fergal O’Brien. In the following UK Championship he defeated Stephen Hendry in the last 32. He opened his last-16 match against Mark Williams with two centuries in the first three frames, building a 5-1 lead, but Williams fought back and he lost 5-9. He then reached the quarter-finals in the 2008 China Open before losing to Shaun Murphy. At the 2008 World Championship he led Stephen Hendry 6-3, 7-4 and 9-7 before losing 9-10. However, first-round defeats for all his rivals for a top 16 place ensured that he finished the season at number 16 in the rankings.
On the first day of the 2010 World Championship on 17 April 2010, Allen came close to recording his first ever maximum break in his first round match against Tom Ford after potting 15 reds with blacks, and the yellow, before breaking down on the green.[14] Five days later, Allen made the first 146 break in World Championship history, and the second of his career after defeating Mark Davis 13-5 in the second round. He was defeated 12-13 in the quarter-final by Graeme Dott, having led 12-10.
At the 2010 UK Championship, Allen reached the semi-finals for the first time, where he was beaten 9-5 by eventual champion John Higgins. In the Masters, Allen again reached the semi-finals, and led Marco Fu 4-1 before Fu reeled off five frames in a row to win 6-4. At the 2011 World Championship, Allen entered as the 11th seed and played Matthew Stevens in the first round, recovering from 9-6 down and seeing Stevens miss a pot on the final pink to win the match 10-7, before winning 10-9. In the second round, Allen defeated Barry Hawkins 13-12. He reached the quarter-finals for a 2nd year in a row but lost to Mark Williams 5-13.
Allen lost the last four frames in the first round of the Masters to Neil Robertson having led 3-2 and stated afterwards that he had ‘completely lost interest’ in the match. He accused the Australian of employing slow tactics and said that at times he didn’t want to watch him play. In winning the 2012 world open Allen picked up a cheque for GBP75,000 and hefty ranking points to take him to world no.7 in the rankings. Allen has a rivalry with Stuart Bingham. After Bingham squandered a 12-9 lead in the second round of the 2011 World Snooker Championship to lose 13-12 against Ding Junhui, Allen stated that Bingham had ‘no bottle’ and admitted that there was history between the players and that they did not get on. Bingham responded by calling Allen an idiot and the tension between the two was clearly high as they were drawn to play each other in the second round of the 2011 Australian Goldfields Open, which Bingham went on to win.
(Source: Wikipedia).
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