Mark Allen: 'What a Time It Would Be' to Win the World Championship After His Worst Season in Years
The Crucible as a Cure
There is something almost perverse about Mark Allen's relationship with form. By most players' standards, a season containing a ranking title and four semi-final appearances would represent a personal best. For the man from Antrim, it has felt like wading through treacle. "It has probably been my worst season performance wise for a long time," he admitted ahead of his first-round clash with China's Zhang Anda, which gets under way at the Crucible this Saturday morning. "But I've still ground out results."
That tension — between the scoreboard saying one thing and the gut saying quite another — is something Allen has carried through the whole of this campaign. He lifted the English Open and reached the last four of four other ranking events, yet rarely felt like himself at the table. He narrowly missed out on the Home Nations Series prize to Jack Lisowski, edged out in what was a close-run thing across the four events. For a player of his standards, that particular near-miss stung. And yet here he stands, ranked 14th in the world and fully aware that Sheffield represents not just another tournament, but the one glittering prize still absent from a career that already boasts the UK Championship and The Masters.
The Grand Slam Gap
Win those two and the World Championship and you have snooker's career Grand Slam — the kind of achievement that separates the great from the truly legendary. Only a handful of players have managed it. Allen, now 40, knows the clock is not his ally, but he is drawing inspiration from a rather unlikely source: a certain golfer from Holywood, County Down.
"I've always followed Rory's career," Allen said, referencing Rory McIlroy's long-awaited completion of golf's own Grand Slam at The Masters last year. "We turned pro at a very similar time and he has done wonders in the world of sport. It would be nice to follow in his footsteps — but obviously Rory is a much bigger star than I am." There is a self-deprecating charm to that qualifier, though nobody watching Allen at his very best — the cue ball singing off the cushion, centuries compiled with something close to contempt for the opposition — would seriously question his standing in snooker's upper tier. "Being world champion is the one thing missing from my CV. It's a decent CV but I want to improve on it year on year."
A 'Very Tough' Opening Test
Before any of that, there is Zhang Anda to deal with. The Chinese potter arrives in Sheffield in excellent qualifying form, having been in prolific century-scoring mode in the preliminary rounds. Allen is not underestimating him. "It's a very tough opening match," he acknowledged, and the numbers bear that out. Allen has twice reached the semi-finals at the Crucible — the furthest he has gone — but has also suffered back-to-back second-round exits in the past two years. A player who knows these Sheffield corridors as well as anyone, he is also aware that the Crucible can be as unforgiving as it is magnificent.
What makes Allen's situation particularly interesting is his own diagnosis of the problem. This is not, he insists, a question of effort or preparation. "It's not through lack of practice and I've been trying to do the right things off the table, it just hasn't been my best year." More troubling, perhaps, is the nature of the defeats. "There haven't really been times when I've played well and just been beaten by a better player. I've just played very poorly all the time." For a perfectionist — and Allen, for all his earthy bluntness, undeniably is one — that distinction matters enormously. Losing to a superior opponent on a given day is sport. Losing to yourself is something else entirely.
'Seventeen Days to Put It Right'
And so he arrives in Sheffield carrying both the weight of a frustrating season and, paradoxically, a kind of hard-won confidence that comes from grinding out results even when the snooker hasn't flowed. "I try not to panic, try not to over-analyse things and hope good form will come," he said, though he admits that is easier said than done when the hard work simply isn't translating into the performances he craves.
The World Championship runs over 17 days, and Allen — ever the pragmatist — views that as 17 days of opportunity. "What a time it would be to do it," he said, with a quiet certainty that resonated far more than any pre-tournament bravado might. Sheffield has a way of distilling a season into something pure and unforgiving. For Mark Allen, that might be exactly what he needs.
