World Grand Prix: Mark Allen defends decision to concede match with 11 reds on 'disgusting' table
ByPA Sport
Updated 08/02/2019 at 08:22 GMT
Mark Allen faces a fine from World Snooker after conceding a match-winning frame with 11 reds still left on the table at the World Grand Prix but the Northern Irishman was unrepentant in the immediate aftermath of the match.
Mark Allen of Northern Ireland in action
Image credit: Getty Images
The former Masters champion was 3-1 down to Ali Carter and trailing 20 points to two in the fifth frame when he missed a straightforward yellow and screwed the white ball back into the middle pocket.
The Northern Irishman immediately conceded the frame, and with it the match, to gift Carter a place in the quarter-finals against fellow Englishman David Gilbert, a match he would go on to win 5-1.
Allen, who is currently sixth in the world rankings, later took to Twitter to apologise for his performance.
However, the 32-year-old, who described the playing conditions of the table as "disgusting", said he had no regrets after the match.
"Not at all,” Allen said when asked did he regret the decision.
I don't regret much that I've done over the years.
What's the point of the audience watching me miss more and more?
"I felt like I had to hit the ball so hard to move the white. It was really heavy and then you get annoyed because you look over at table two and it looks to be playing beautifully."
"I think if I had played on I would have smashed my cue up."
“We both started missing a lot and I think Mark missed the yellow there and he just saw red. We’ve all done it and fortunately for me it gives me the match, but I didn’t want to win like that," Carter told ITV4.
We all make mistakes. I read in the paper the other day that Sergio Garcia hacked up a couple of greens and went into one in a bunker and you think to yourself ‘What’s he got to worry about?’
“But you get so entrenched in what you’re doing and you are so frustrated, because it is your life. This sport is my life and golf is Sergio’s life and it doesn’t make an excuse but it gives a reason.”
World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association rules state that “each member shall perform and compete to the best of his ability in each tournament in which he competes” and players are subject to disciplinary action if they concede a frame it is mathematically possible to win.
WORLD GRAND PRIX
FIRST ROUND (best of seven frames)
Monday February 4
7pm
- Ronnie O’Sullivan 2-4 Marco Fu
- Mark Allen 4-2 Gary Wilson
- Barry Hawkins 4-1 Ryan Day
- Stuart Bingham 4-1 Zhao Xintong
Tuesday February 5
1pm
- Martin O’Donnell 3-4 Ali Carter
- Jimmy Robertson 3-4 Mark Davis
- Mark Williams 3-4 Yuan Sijun
- Neil Robertson 3-4 Xiao Guodong
7pm
- Joe Perry 3-4 Tom Ford
- Stephen Maguire 4-1 Mark King
- Judd Trump 4-3 Stuart Carrington
- Jack Lisowski 1-4 Ding Junhui
Wednesday February 6
1pm
- Mark Selby 4-1 Shaun Murphy
- John Higgins 2-4 Noppon Saengkham
- David Gilbert 4-0 Yan Bingtao
- Kyren Wilson 4-3 Matthew Stevens
LAST 16 (best of seven frames)
7pm
- Xiao Guodong 4-1 Mark Davis
- Tom Ford 2-4 Judd Trump
- Stephen Maguire 2-4 Yuan SiJun
- Barry Hawkins 4-1 Marco Fu
Thursday February 7
1pm
- David Gilbert 4-0 Ding Junhui
- Ali Carter 4-1 Mark Allen
- Kyren Wilson 4-0 Stuart Bingham
- Mark Selby 4-2 Noppon Saengkham
7pm
- Ali Carter 5-1 David Gilbert
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