Mark Allen received the 2024 Riyadh Season Snooker Championship on Friday with a 5-1 victory over Luca Brecel within the ultimate.
The Northern Irishman compiled a brace of century breaks within the title-deciding affair to emerge with the silverware in Saudi Arabia.
Allen pockets the £250,000 champion’s cheque, prize cash which received’t depend in the direction of the world rankings because the occasion was categorised as an invitational.
The Pistol entered the competitors within the quarter-final stage the place he ousted Mark Selby with a 4-2 scoreline.
Allen then defeated reigning champion Ronnie O’Sullivan within the penultimate spherical, scoring a excessive break of 134 to additionally beat the Rocket 4-2.
Brecel, who beat Zhang Anda, Kyren Wilson and Mark Williams, started the ultimate battle strongly by taking the opening body.
However that was nearly as good because it bought for the Belgian Bullet as he duly misplaced the following 5.
It’s the second time that the 29 year-old has completed runner-up within the event having additionally missed out on glory in March when it was initially branded because the World Masters of Snooker.
For Allen, it’s a powerful strategy to end the calendar 12 months having been denied in a few dramatic semi-final ties on the UK Championship and the Scottish Open lately.
That being stated, the world quantity 4 is scheduled to take part within the World Open qualifiers on Sunday in what can be his ultimate outing of 2024.
The Riyadh Season Snooker Championship was as soon as once more a glitzy affair that underlined the riches on supply in Saudi Arabia.
Nonetheless, there have been some embarrassing delays to the motion, together with on the opening day when a lighting subject compelled an interlude within the first-round match between Zhang Anda and native wildcard Ahmed Aseeri.
Zhang was heading in the right direction to make the event’s first most break on the time, and with it a possible alternative to pot the controversial golden ball for a 167 break and a $1,000,000 jackpot bonus.
However regardless of potting a number of extra balls after they lastly returned to the desk, the Chinese language cueist finally broke down on 97.
In the long run, the gimmicky golden ball value 20 factors wasn’t struck in anger for the second successive staging of the occasion.
Mark Allen, although, received’t thoughts an excessive amount of about that – he’s 1 / 4 of 1,000,000 kilos richer after profitable three matches within the house of two brief days.
2024 Snooker Championship draw
Spherical 1
Ding Junhui 4-0 Abdulraouf Saigh
Zhang Anda 4-0 Ahmed Aseeri
Spherical 2
Ding Junhui 4-0 Shaun Murphy
Luca Brecel 4-0 Zhang Anda
Quarter-Finals
Ronnie O’Sullivan 4-0 Ding Junhui
Mark Allen 4-2 Mark Selby
Mark Williams 4-3 Judd Trump
Luca Brecel 4-3 Kyren Wilson
Semi-Finals
Mark Allen 4-2 Ronnie O’Sullivan
Luca Brecel 4-2 Mark Williams
Remaining
Mark Allen 5-1 Luca Brecel
Featured photograph credit score: WST
