“I’ll be honest, I was trying to not think about the crowd… I was trying to just take one ball at a time. But when I potted the red over the pocket to bring the last red out, I started to really panic.”
You could forgive Mark Allen’s nerves. With the score tied at eight frames apiece, and the glittering prize of the Alex Higgins Trophy beckoning, the Northern Irishman was presented with a chance to defeat John Higgins and seal the Northern Ireland Open title. Every shot was a pint of blood, but the balls kept finding the pockets, and eventually the crowd were celebrating victory for their hometown hero.
It was a stunning match, one that ebbed and flowed deliciously before a thrilling climax gripped the crowd at the Waterfront Hall in Belfast. Higgins seemed to have pulled away, taking three frames in a row to establish an 8-6 lead, a run which included a magnificent 136 break in frame 14. But Allen reeled him in again, knuckling down to produce some outstanding tactical play to draw the scores level.
Both players had chances in the decider, but it was Allen who prevailed. As he inched towards the winning line, the crowd grew more and more excited. Allen’s legs turned to jelly, but he managed to hold himself together and deliver one of the most significant wins of his career.
Weight of expectation
Less than 20 miles up the road lies Antrim, where Allen was born and raised, and still lives today. It is a town that takes great pride in its sporting heroes — Allen being just about the biggest they have. When he won the Masters in 2018, a floral arrangement declared to passers-through that this was Antrim, home of the Masters champion.
It’s no surprise that the Northern Ireland Open is a special competition for Allen. As the only tournament to be played on the island of Ireland each season, you can understand that the 35-year-old has felt a certain degree of pressure whenever he has taken to the table in Belfast.
Indeed, his results prior to this year’s tournament made for grim reading. Since reaching the quarter-finals in 2016, Allen had failed to get beyond the fourth round of the Northern Ireland Open, with the unique pressure of performing in front of his home fans too much to handle.
But something clicked this year. Allen decided to treat it as any other tournament, staying in a nearby hotel instead of travelling to matches from his own home, which paid dividends.
Back to his best
The 2020-21 season was not a classic for Allen. Setting aside his triumph in the invitational Champion of Champions, where he played some of the best snooker of his career, results were indifferent. A quarter-final in the Gibraltar Open was the best he had to show for his efforts in ranking events, as the Northern Irishman struggled with the effects of the pandemic, and the bubble-style tournaments which took place in Milton Keynes.
Following his second-round loss to Mark Selby at the World Championship, Allen said that he would be taking a break from the sport, with various off-table issues that needed sorting in his personal life. Whatever he did over the summer, he looks refreshed, and this latest title will be a reminder to himself that he can still perform at the highest level.
Allen also reached the final of the Championship League earlier in the campaign, and he looks like a man on a mission this season, with the snooker betting odds more favorable towards him. The fog which was clouding his game appears to have lifted, and things are suddenly looking a lot brighter.
A win for the ages
The man nicknamed ‘the Pistol’ has won some big titles in his career — the 2018 Masters and 2020 Champion of Champions chiefly among them, as well as big events in China — but the holy grail has always been landing a win in Belfast.
Allen produced some fine snooker to reach the final, winning five frames on the spin to come from 3-0 down and beat defending champion Judd Trump in the quarter-final, before sweeping aside an in-form Ricky Walden in the last four.
Higgins was the ultimate test, but Allen stood up to the four-time world champion and should really have led going into the second session. It looked as though the Scot was poised to break Northern Irish hearts, but the home favorite showed his remarkable resilience to fight back and earn a victory that he won’t forget in a hurry.
“I don’t usually get past round one here, it’s a real bonus!” Allen joked afterwards. “I’ve tried to play it down all week but I know what this means, what Northern Ireland snooker means to these people, and to keep this trophy here in Northern Ireland is a special, special moment I’ll never forget.”