Mark Allen dumped out of Players Championship at Telford
Defending champion Mark Allen was dumped out in the opening round of the Players Championship in Telford after a 6-3 defeat to Kyren Wilson.
Wilson came on strong in the later stages of the contest with three consecutive half-centuries proving enough to wrap up an impressive win.
Wilson told ITV4: “I’ve just thrived off winning my world title. It’s given me so much confidence and I feel like that’s showing in my performances.”
Allen, who needed a win to retain any hope of reaching the Tour Championship in Manchester at the end of the month, had responded well to Wilson’s opening 87 with a break of 125 to pull level at 1-1.
The Northern Irishman then hauled back a two-frame deficit to level at 3-3 before the world champion responded with breaks of 66, 74 and 53 to set up a second-round clash with Mark Williams.
Williams secured a 6-2 win over Ding Junhui in an attritional contest that hinged on a dreadful miss by the Chinese player in the sixth frame.
Faced with potting the last four colours off their spots to draw level at 3-3, Ding inexplicably missed a simple brown and the Welshman duly wrapped up the frame for 4-2 and never looked back.
