Richard Mann reflects on the recent Champion of Champions where Mark Allen was back to his brilliant best and Mark Selby again caught the eye.
Allen resists Ronnie and blitzes the rest
It started with an uninspiring 4-3 victory over the plucky Scott Donaldson, quickly followed by handbags at dawn with Ronnie O'Sullivan, before finishing with thoroughly commanding victories over the two form players in the game, world number one Judd Trump and defending champion Neil Robertson. It was certainly an eventful week for Mark Allen at the Champion of Champions.
For a player who reached six semi-finals last season, as well as the final of the Tour Championship, it seems strange to say that Mark Allen had lost the winning touch. But he had, and victory in Milton Keynes was his first since claiming the Scottish Open title at the end of 2018.
Winning is a habit - just ask Judd Trump - and Allen was beginning to frustrate even his most loyal supporters with a spate of near misses, the obvious when appearing desperately unlucky against the aforementioned Trump in the semi-finals of this event 12 months ago.
Still, Allen continued to plug away, so sure was he that his hard work on the practice table would eventually yield more silverware and his heavy scoring so far this season, albeit sometimes in defeat, suggested he wasn't far away. Even when losing to Jamie Clarke in the first round of the World Championship in August, Allen made five centuries while he made four in four frames when beating Ken Doherty 5-0 at the European Masters at the beginning of this season.
While last year Allen's consistency owed much to his solid all-round game and seemingly unflappable temperament, the early part of this campaign had seen him look in much better touch without being able to grind out results in the earlier rounds in quite the same way.
His hard-fought defeat of Donaldson mirrored last term to some extent, particularly the way he managed to avoid a potential banana skin by digging deep despite struggling for his best, but his defeat of O'Sullivan saw the Country Antrim native finally put it all together.
Allen made breaks of 104, 102, 78, 74, 66 to outmuscle the best breakbuilder of all time, but it was the way in which he kept his cool following a verbal spat with O'Sullivan that was most impressive, and he displayed great character to close out the match in ruthless fashion only a few minutes later.
Against Trump, we saw the other side of Allen with some outstanding safety play depriving the recent English Open hero of the chance to find any rhythm to such an extent that the 6-1 scoreline was a fair reflection of the evening's play.
A day later and Allen produced the complete package as he went toe-to-toe with Robertson across two sessions, the pair sharing seven centuries in another high-class match. Nevertheless, Allen again needed to show great resolve when losing a 13th frame he should have won to allow Robertson to close to 7-6 behind at the mid-session interval.
It could have been a turning point in the match but Allen wasn't perturbed and returned from the interval with breaks of 119, 70 and 105 to win three frames on the bounce and close out the match.
When on song and at his best, Allen makes snooker seem so simple; that short, punchy cue action and that wonderful cue-ball control making every pot seem so easy. Of course, it's not, but when Allen is playing like that he can match the very best the Trumps, the O'Sullivans and Robertsons, and it might prove significant that he beat that stellar cast one after another last week.
The sky really should be the limit for a talent as big as Mark Allen and if he can build on this, there is no reason why he can't add to the Masters title he claimed in January 2018, or even finally put it all together in Sheffield at the World Championship next spring.
Selby and Higgins catch the eye
In a sport where Ronnie O'Sullivan invariably steels the headlines, Judd Trump seemingly wins every other tournament, and Neil Robertson makes century breaks with alarming regularity, it can be easy to slip under the radar.
Mark Selby knows this better than most. Despite winning three world titles already, along with the same number of Masters wins and a pair of UK Championship triumphs, Selby has often played the character of pantomime villain, particularly when it has come to his many battles with O'Sullivan. But the very fact he has enjoyed such a fierce rivalry with a prime O'Sullivan when others just couldn't live with The Rocket says everything about his class, his incredible will to win and ability to deliver under pressure.
This is a serious snooker player - a modern-day great in every sense of the word - and following a couple of seasons where he wasn't quite at his brutal best, Selby has given every indication since this summer's World Championship that he has his game right where he wants it to be.
A fine run to the semi-finals of the World Championship in August was only brought to a halt by a barely-believable comeback from O'Sullivan while Selby kicked off this season by winning the European Masters.
Since then, a pair of last-four finishes at the English Open and the Champion of Champions confirms Selby to be in good nick, but a closer inspection of both of those semi-final defeats tells you Selby was an unlucky loser on both occasions and that he might well have won three titles this season with just a little bit more rub of the green.
Robertson certainly admitted he had things go his way in the first of those semi-finals while Friday's rematch was one that made Stephen Hendry declare, “I’ve never seen a better best-of-11 match than this," so high was the standard.
Both players made three centuries in that match, along with five more 50+ contributions between them, and Selby was understandably frustrated when twice forcing his opponent into mistakes in the deciding frame, only to see the balls run safe.
In the end, Robertson held his nerve to prevail in a fantastic match but Selby continues to play out of skin and will surely be winning again before the season is out. Furthermore, he promises to return to his beloved Sheffield in April in better form than he did last season, and playing to a standard not too far off what he was producing when winning the World Championship three times in four years between 2014 and 2017.
With that in mind, the 10/1 about him winning a fourth world title in the spring might not be the worst ante-post price ever quoted.
While Selby continues to catch the eye, another class act with an illustrious CV should not be overlooked in the coming weeks and months either.
Like Selby, John Higgins also made the semi-finals of the English Open recently when scoring heavily and barely dropping a frame until Judd Trump burst his bubble in a match in which Higgins was always on the front foot until surrendering a 4-3 lead.
He looked in really good shape there, and again last week when controlling his first-round match with Ding Junhui until losing 4-3, having again led from the start and built up a healthy lead in a deciding frame which he really ought to have closed out.
Higgins was visibly frustrated at the conclusion of that match but I'm sure it was about more than losing; he was right to feel like that was a chance missed with Trump, O'Sullivan and eventual winner Mark Allen all drawn on the opposite half of the draw, and he was certainly playing well enough to enjoy a deep run.
Higgins will have to bounce back from that setback, but the veteran has done that many times before and with the tournaments coming thick and fast over the next few months, I'm convinced the old master can continue to pack a punch and possibly pick up some silverware along the way.