Mark Allen completed a remarkable comeback against Ding Junhui to secure the UK Championship title. Allen stunned the York crowd coming from 6-1 behind to defeat his rival 10-7 to win the crown.
Ding headed into the clash full of confidence after thrashing the great Ronnie O'Sullivan 6-0 in the quarter-final, and Tom Ford 6-3 in the semi-final. This confidence was clear to see, as he carried on from where he had left off by taking the opening two frames to take an early 2-0 lead.
Allen finally grounded himself and got himself back into the clash as he fought back in frame three, but Ding was in no mood to leave the door open for long.
Blowing his rival out the park, the 35-year-old won the next four frames on the bounce to bridge the gap between himself and Allen.
Clearly blown away, the Northern Irishman was now well up against it and the mid-game interval could not come quick enough. Allen then went on to limit the deficit to leave the score at 6-2 at the break, but the 36-year-old still had it all to do in the evening.
As is often the case though, the lengthy break led to a huge swing in momentum following the restart. After struggling early on, Allen fought his way back into the clash by winning the opening three frames of the evening session to reduce Ding's once comfortable lead to just one.
The Northern Irishman came out a different man as his class began to show just at the right time. One frame later, a battle of the snookers played out and the run continued as it was Ding who dropped his guard first to give Allen his fifth frame on the bounce - and more importantly levelled things up at 6-6.
Remarkably, the world No. 4 did not stop there. Just a frame before the interval, Allen found himself 6-1 down and staring a thumping defeat in the face. Hours later though the things could not have been more different.
After levelling the match up at 6-6, the Northern Irishman's remarkable run continued as he added two more frames to his astonishing run to leave him within touching difference of the UK Championship final. Ding however was in no mood to roll over.
Finally after losing seven frames on the spin, the Chinese star clawed his way back into it as he produced an impressive century break at the most important time to keep his UK Championship hopes alive to leave the score tightly poised at 8-7. Having capitalised on the interval midway through the game, Allen once again took advantage of a quick break in play once more.
The Northern Irish star found his mojo again, firing back in the 16th frame to go 9-7 ahead and put one hand on the trophy. And this quickly changed to two, as a tense final frame was finally won by Allen to secure a famous comeback and victory.
