{"id":938776,"date":"2026-05-05T06:52:18","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T06:52:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/938776\/"},"modified":"2026-05-05T06:52:18","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T06:52:18","slug":"bbc-snookers-hazel-irvine-apologises-to-player-as-pundit-never-seen-anything-like-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/938776\/","title":{"rendered":"BBC snooker’s Hazel Irvine apologises to player as pundit ‘never seen anything like it’"},"content":{"rendered":"

BBC presenter Hazel Irvine apologised after Mark Allen missed a match-winning black against Wu Yize in a dramatic World Snooker Championship semi-final, leaving the Northern Irishman with a painful reminder of his Crucible heartbreak\"Hazel<\/p>\n

Hazel Irvine during the World Snooker Championship coverage(Image: 2026 Getty Images)<\/p>\n

BBC presenter Hazel Irvine issued a live on-air apology to Mark Allen during the World Championship final. It came amid Shaun Murphy’s clash with Wu Yize, after the Chinese player had beaten Allen in the semi-final to book his place in his very first Crucible final.<\/p>\n

Things could have looked very different had Allen potted what would have been a match-winning black to clinch a 17-15 victory. However, the extraordinary miss handed the frame to Wu, who went on to win the decider and triumph 17-16.<\/p>\n

The defeat means Allen’s pursuit of a maiden World Championship final appearance goes on for at least another year. Following a highlights package of this year’s tournament aired during the Murphy vs Wu interval, Irvine simply couldn’t bring herself to watch the missed shot all over again.<\/p>\n

Speaking on the BBC’s coverage after a montage of the tournament’s most memorable moments, the Scottish presenter said: “Nicely done Steve [Bracknall] aka Chris McClure, stage name, really genius stuff there. I still cannot watch Mark Allen’s missed black, I am really sorry Mark. But the grace in which he took that was extraordinary, wasn’t it?”<\/p>\n

\"Halo<\/p>\n

Mark Allen suffered a heartbreaking defeat in the semi-finals(Image: Getty)<\/p>\n

John Parrott chipped in: “Unbelievable. If you are watching pal, I am still hurting for you. I am absolutely am, I have never seen anything like it.” Allen was unlikely to have witnessed the agonising moment from home, but the Northern Irishman faced the music after the loss, admitting: “You don’t deserve to be in the world final if you’re missing balls like that<\/p>\n

“That was just pure pressure to be honest. Normally I’m pretty good under the pressure but just didn’t handle it well today. I was probably more nervous at different stages of the match than I was on that black.<\/p>\n

“I just threw a quick one in, I genuinely did. I just didn’t deliver the cue properly and I got what I deserved when you miss a black like that to win the match. I had two, three chances to close out the match and didn’t do it. But credit to Wu.”<\/p>\n

He added: “The final frame was another opportunity to win. I was fine going into it – win the next frame, that’s what I always say. I was a little unlucky when I potted the pink, split the reds but didn’t land on anything.<\/p>\n

“But I had more than enough chances to win. At the end of the match, I just wished Wu good luck and said he played very well. I think he’s going to be a world champion.”<\/p>\n

Wu did indeed go on to win the world title, beating Shaun Murphy 18-17 in a dramatic final frame shoot off.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BBC presenter Hazel Irvine apologised after Mark Allen missed a match-winning black against Wu Yize in a dramatic…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":938777,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[8817],"tags":[748,393,4884,1620,10380,16,15],"class_list":["post-938776","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sheffield","tag-britain","tag-england","tag-great-britain","tag-sheffield","tag-snooker","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116520651938539159","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/938776","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=938776"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/938776\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/938777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=938776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=938776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=938776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}