Ronnie O’Sullivan has sent a warning to Mark Allen following the 36-year-old’s UK Championship victory. ‘The Rocket’ watched on as his rival’s sparkling form continued to win his maiden title at the event yesterday.
Finding himself 6-1 down, Allen produced a sensational comeback to defeat the spirited Ding Junhui 10-7 in York. The Northern Irishman raised his game and made breaks of 79, 60, 93, 132, 56, 59 and 109 in consecutive frames to help turn the match around.
After clinching one of the biggest titles on the snooker circuit, O’Sullivan, who’s won the event a record seven times, highlighted the pressure Allen will now be under moving forward. “It gives you great confidence, winning. Definitely you can start to win tournaments not playing great, it’s weird how that sort of thing happens,” the snooker legend told Eurosport. "But naturally it becomes a bit of a target on his back now. They’ll all be revved up for him.
“A lot of players will be sitting at home thinking, alright I want to get into him. So it’s going to be different now, how he handles that. All dynamics change when you start winning a lot. That’s why he said he’s got to get back to the practice table. I know it’s a bit of a ruthless thing but it’s history now. It’s all about the next one and the next one.
“If you want to keep winning and proving yourself you’ve got to put this one in the past and move onto the next one. That’s what Stephen Hendry did , that’s what Steve Davis did. It’s a tough school.” O’Sullivan lambasted Allen’s level of the play in the early stages of the match, but also praised Ding who made three centuries and two more 50-plus breaks.
"He just can’t pot a ball. I’ve never seen anyone play so bad, it’s the worst I think I’ve seen from anybody in a long, long time," added O’Sullivan. “A lot of that’s got to do with Ding. He’s just playing fantastic snooker." However, Allen’s turnaround, and the mental strength it took to produce it impressed the world champion, who compared the Pistol to one of his great rivals.
“It was amazing, it was Selby-like really, you didn’t give him a shot,” he said. “He didn’t pot a ball for about 53 minutes. A lot of people could jump on Ding for that but he didn’t do a lot wrong, he played alright.”
Allen, who clinched the Northern Ireland Open title and reached the British Open final earlier this year, has now set his sights on the triple crown after winning The Masters in 2018.
“These tournaments aren’t easy to win and I’ve wanted to win these big tournaments for so long,” Allen told Eurosport. “It means so much to me and I make no qualms about it that I want to win these big events.
“That’s me up to two Triple Crowns and hopefully I can go on and win many more to come. I feel like my game’s in good enough shape to do that.”
