Mark Allen last night added a second Triple Crown title to his cv ,producing a stunning comeback to beat Ding Junhui 10-7 and claim the 2022 UK Championship.
At one stage in the afternoon it had looked like we might be in for an early evening as Ding, playing some beautiful snooker, stormed in to a 6-1,but the hallmark of Allen this week has been a tenacity & determination to dig out a result when things looked bleak & that's what we saw again here.
Coming out in the evening Allen would have been looking at winning the first mini session to give himself a chance, but he did even better than that and went to the mid session interval having leveled up at 6-6. From here & despite a century from Ding, there looked only one winner. So it proved as Allen won a lengthy 17th frame to claim a famous win.
This was Allen's second title from three ranking finals this season & the way he is competing at the moment, it'd be a brave man to say its going to be his last. |For Ding, although the week ultimately ended in failure, he can look back at great run here that hopefully propels him back up the rankings again. A fully confident Ding is a joy to watch on the table and a potential winner wherever he cues up.
This match of course came at the end of fortnight that saw the UK Championship reclaim its identity as one of the sports premier tournaments. The years of the flat 128 draw had done nothing for the event except make it feel rushed and hard to follow. Now restored to a "World Championship model" it has the feel of a proper event again. The qualifying rounds were made freely available & like we see in Sheffield in April, they felt like a tournament in and of themselves. The "judgement day" multi table coverage is always a great treat.
Personally I'd love to see them go one step further & make Quarters & Semi finals best of 17's again. This would only require two morning sessions for the Last 32.Some would argue that having the two semi finals being played simultaneously would be a bad thing. but I think it's a sacrifice worth making to bring us more multi session matches. If you don't do it in the second biggest tournament then where?
When I'm at it I want to buck the common social media trend & say how much once again I enjoyed the BBC coverage. I know we a spoiled with the amount of snooker we see for free on tv, but I still think noone does it better than the Beeb. Now if only they can be persuaded to keep John Virgo in the commentary box beyond this season, as he proved yet again this week that he is still the greatest voice in the game.
Finally once again to salute our champion. Mark Allen embarked on some major lifestyle changes during the summer, not just for his snooker, but for his general wellbeing. Its is wonderful to see him getting his just rewards. For him that's 2/3rds of the Triple Crown now completed. Can he add the final 1/3rd on the first Monday of May next year? You couldn't bet against it.
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