Allen does it again

Quarter Final round-up

Continuing from my last blog post, the Quarter finals were incredibly entertaining and lived up to billing that i gave it in the last blog. Starting with a repeat of the 2013 Masters final between Mark Selby Vs Neil Robertson, which was very high quality affair. Selby took an early lead with a break of 91, but breaks of 53 and 107 in the next 2 frames gave the 2010 world champion a 2-1 lead. The match swung again with Selby going 3-2 ahead. Robertson then took all of the last 3 with breaks of 73, 79 and 59 and arguably even better than his 2nd round match which he claimed was his "best in China".

Meanwhile Matthew Stevens beat Judd Trump 5-3 after getting his own cue back. However, Trump had problems of his own after discovering his cue tip was mishapen. After Trump took the first frame, Stevens took the next 3 and a 3-1 lead at the interval. After the break, the new world no.1 took the next 2 frames including an 85 break to make it 3-3. Stevens took the last 2 though, with Stevens top break of the match, a 79 in the final frame, to get him to his first ranking semi-final of the season.

In the later session, Mark Allen dominated Ricky Walden to keep his defence going along. Allen made top breaks of 72, 62 and 58 and all Walden could reply with was an 82 in the second frame.

John Higgins produced the performance of the tournament so far in beating home favourite Ding Juhui 5-0. Ding barely had a chance as he only made 14 points in the first 4 frames and a total of 40 points overall. Higgins started the match by making the tournament high break, a 141, and followed it up with a 113 break in the second frame. He completely shut Ding out of the next 2 frames with two more frame winning breaks of 73 and 56, confirming him as one of the favourites for the title.

The Final Four

In the first semi-final between Neil Robertson and Matthew Stevens neither player was ever more than 1 frame ahead in a game with many twists and turns. The first 4 frames of the match were shared with top breaks of 52 and 69 from Stevens. The fifth frame could have gone either way but went the way of the "thunder from down under". Stevens levelled again at 3-3 with a break of 79 and took the next with a break of 55 to regain the lead. Robertson really upped his game, making a break of 107 to make it a best of 3 for a place in the final. Stevens had a good chance to go back in front with a break of 65, but Robertson stole it with a 57 to go one away from victory. A 60 break in the tenth form the Welshmen gave us the decider that this match really deserved. In the end Matthew Stevens played a great decider as Robertson didn't have a chance to score any points at all and Stevens booked his place in the final with a top break in the decider of 51.

Mark Allen reminded us, for the first time this week really, why he won this title last year in his semi-final against John Higgins. John Higgins hadn't lost a frame in his last 2 matches against Bingham and Ding, and he started this match of nicely with a 90 break giving him a 1-0 lead. Allen showed his class in the next with a break of 119, and he dominated the third as well giving the Irishmen a 2-1 advantage. Higgins levelled the match with a break of 58 in the last frame before the interval. Those turned out to be the last points Higgins scored in the match as Allen took all of the next four frame without giving the 2011 world champion a sniff of a chance. Allen made breaks of 56, 81 and 76 in the last 3 frames and even bettered Higgins with some of his safety play, which is never easy. A really good win which put Mark Allen in great shape to defend his title.

Allen Romps Home

In the end Mark Allen stormed to consecutive World Open titles and the £85,000 prize money with a 10-4 victory over Matthew Stevens. The feat was last achieved in full ranking event by John Higgins when he won the 2010 and 2011 Welsh Open tournaments. The Welshmen Stevens was never really in the match after the first couple of frames and had chances to win many of the frames that Allen took early on in the contest. Mark Allen sprinted to a 4-0 mid-session lead in the first session. Stevens had good chances in the first and fourth frames but Allen took both with a 58 break in the fourth. Allen also made breaks of 93 and 52 inbetween. Stevens had to respond and did so, taking the next two frames with breaks of 67 and 112, which was his first century of the tournament. The "pistol" soon put Stevens back in his place though extending his lead back to 4 frames at 6-2, as the 2 time world finalist Stevens failed to score a point. Importantly though he did take the last frame of the first session to set up a possible comeback in the evening.

The comeback never happened though as they only needed 5 of the 10 possible frames in the final session. A tight frame, the tenth could have gone either way and Stevens really needed to take it but really missed the boat as Allen made it 7-3. Matthew put that dissapointment behind him, with a break of 100 getting it back to 7-4. That turned out to be the last frame he won though as Allen took the next 2 before the mid-session break making it 9-4. At this point i thought that World Snooker, the tournament organisers or whoever decided that the presentation commitee should sit in row 1 of an empty stand, with Allen only needing 1 more frame, were incredibly disrespectful to Stevens and stood out like a sore thumb in as they pretty much doubled the amount of people watching in the arena. Luckily for them they weren't left red faced any further as Allen did take the frame with a break of 68 and the well deserved title of 2013 Haikou World Open champion.

ITV Coverage

I thought that the ITV4 coverage of the event turned out to be quite brilliant. Clive Everton was a good catch and along with Neal Foulds, formed a sublime commentary duo. Jill Douglas did a good job as well in the end after being helped along in the first few days by Neal Foulds. On the whole ITV stuck with the live coverage much better than Eurosport who tend to stick to the schedules and priortise snooker somewhere near the bottom when it gets to the final.

Venue Troubles

In all honesty i thought that the trouble filling the venue on the Hainan island was all quite farcical really. The crowds only seemed to turn up for Ding Junhui or Marco Fu who were the 2 local favourites. Other than that they didn't seem interested or couldn't afford a weeks worth of wages, or however much the tickets were, to watch snookers finest. My initial thoughts were they would start to turn out by the end of the week, but was quite suprised that very few people were in the crowd for the final. In my view this tournament has to be moved to an area where snooker is much more popular, instead of letting this go on to a point where World Snooker is losing big money on the event.

Thanks for reading and roll on the PTC Finals next week after an enjoyable week in Haikou.