Mark Allen is dangling perilously close to missing out on a place at The Crucible.
With his position in the world’s top 16 of the rankings not yet assured ahead of the seedings cut-off for the sport’s most prestigious event, his defeat today at the World Grand Prix leaves him with plenty of work to do.
If he were to miss out, it would be the first time a reigning Masters champion has failed to make it to the event as a seeded player and pulls up so many questions as to why the Northern Irishman is struggling to translate his stunning form at Alexandra Palace into ranking events.
He looked all for the world like comfortably negotiating his first round match against Xiao Guodong in Preston, but after leading 3-0 he chucked his advantage away and ended up losing the match 4-3.
Following Xiao’s comeback, he took to Twitter and said: “Completely switched off at 3-0 and got exactly what I deserved!! No divine right to win matches!! Must keep working.”
Allen is currently ranked number 9 in the world but is down at number 16 in the provisional rankings with the likes of Ryan Day, Stephen Maguire and Liang Wenbo in hot pursuit of wrestling the final place from him – especially if Maguire can continue the form he showed today to beat Li Hang 4-0 and have a deep run in this event.
There is plenty to ponder for Allen who ‘should’ be comfortably among the elite given his talent, but this just goes to show that reputation means very little.
While the focus is largely on Allen today and the potential impact of the defeat, Xiao deserves massive praise for staging this impressive comeback after losing in the German Masters quarter-finals 5-4 from 4-0 up himself. That kind of turnaround takes real character.
