{"id":42314,"date":"2025-04-22T23:18:13","date_gmt":"2025-04-22T23:18:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/42314\/"},"modified":"2025-04-22T23:18:13","modified_gmt":"2025-04-22T23:18:13","slug":"mentally-strong-mark-allen-reacts-to-opening-victory-in-sheffield","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/42314\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Mentally strong’ Mark Allen reacts to opening victory in Sheffield"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mark Allen thinks he has got his determined focus back after completing a 10-6 victory over Fan Zhengyi in the World Championship on Monday.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Northern Irishman reached the second round with a strong display against a dangerous young opponent from China.<\/p>\n

Allen could only watch and admire as Fan quickly won the opening three frames of the contest with a flurry of single-scoring visits.<\/p>\n

But the Pistol fought his way back to lead 5-4 at the end of the opening session, and he pinched a couple of crucial close frames in the second session to then pull clear.<\/p>\n

There was a minor wobble when Fan won two frames on the bounce near the end to reduce his arrears to 9-6, but Allen eventually got the job done with a break of 63.<\/p>\n

The 39 year-old began the 2024\/25 snooker season as the sport\u2019s world number one, but a disappointing term has seen him drop down to eighth on the official two-year list.<\/p>\n

After experiencing early defeats in the World Open, the World Grand Prix, and the Players Championship, the Antrim potter looked despondent with his game.<\/p>\n

But the two-time Crucible semi-finalist has been working hard on the mental side of his preparations for Sheffield \u2013 getting fit and benefiting from sessions with his sports psychologist.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was the difference for me yesterday. I don\u2019t think I could have won that session a few years back,\u201d Mark Allen told the World Snooker Tour<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think mentally I\u2019m very strong again. I was just thinking very clearly of one shot and one frame at a time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d have taken 5-4 down [when trailing 3-0]. But to be 5-4 up overnight, he must have been thinking, \u2018well, what more do I have to do here to get ahead of this guy?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cI sort of pushed on then today and had a good start to the [second] session. I won two frames from behind that I had no real right to win.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll of a sudden, it was 8-4, it turned into 9-4, and you\u2019re just having to wait for that good chance.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt took me three frames to do it, but I made a good break in the end.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been working a lot harder on the mental side \u2013 I probably let my foot off the gas a little bit in recent times with that. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve always worked hard on the practice table, I\u2019ve always done my hours. But I feel like I wasn\u2019t doing things right off it.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven eating better. I\u2019ve lost a bit of weight \u2013 a stone in the last month. I\u2019ve been speaking to Paul [Gaffney] every day in the last month. Things are good.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m still not quite where I want to be, but mentally I\u2019m back where I think I was maybe 18 months ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019ll probably win me a lot of frames that I would have lost a few months ago.<\/p>\n

\"MarkMark Allen beat Luca Brecel to win his only title of the campaign at the Riyadh Season Snooker Championship. Photo credit: WST<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d still rather come into the World Championship on the back of winning every tournament in the season and being full of confidence.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut it doesn\u2019t always seem to work out that way, as you\u2019ve seen with Kyren [Wilson] going out. <\/p>\n

\u201cBarry [Hawkins] was one of the form players of the year, Neil Robertson was one of the form players of the year, and they\u2019re already out.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I\u2019d still rather come in here full of confidence.\u201d<\/p>\n

Allen will face Chris Wakelin in the last 16 as he continues his bid to win the World Snooker Championship title for the first time.<\/p>\n

Elsewhere on day three at the Crucible Theatre, an emotional John Higgins<\/a> fought back from behind to beat Joe O\u2019Connor in a repeat of their recent World Open final.<\/p>\n

Zhao Xintong completed his impressive triumph over last year\u2019s runner-up Jak Jones, with the Chinese qualifier very much on everybody\u2019s radar as a potential champion in 2025.<\/p>\n

Two other cueists from China lead overnight after orchestrating first-session advantages, with Ding Junhui and Si Jiahui leading Zak Surety and David Gilbert 6-3 respectively.<\/p>\n

Those two ties conclude on Tuesday while Ronnie O\u2019Sullivan and Shaun Murphy are among the star names entering the fray.<\/p>\n

The Rocket returns to action for the first time in over three months against Ali Carter, while Murphy entertains debutant Daniel Wells.<\/p>\n

Featured photo credit: WST<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mark Allen thinks he has got his determined focus back after completing a 10-6 victory over Fan Zhengyi…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":42315,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8817],"tags":[748,393,4884,23767,1620,16,15,20873],"class_list":{"0":"post-42314","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sheffield","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-mark-allen","12":"tag-sheffield","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom","15":"tag-world-championship"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114384175846553350","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42314","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42314"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42314\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}