Mark Allen downs Mark Selby in Masters slugfest after ‘ridiculous’ luck
Mark Allen battled his way into the semi-finals of the Masters after a 6-2 win over Mark Selby on Thursday night.
It finished an impressive scoreline in Allen’s favour but the match did not feel one-sided, with a string of close and long frames.
The game began at a nice pace with Allen making 81, Selby responding with 88 and the Northern Irishman retaking the lead with a 104.
However, the one-visit frames ended there for some time as the next three were lengthy, tight and edgy.
They all went in Allen’s favour, two of them on the black, and the Pistol found himself 5-1 ahead despite the game feeling on a knife edge throughout.
Allen had enjoyed some good fortune during those tight frames, while Selby seemed to have complaints with the table, but he took his frustrations out by knocking in a fluent 80 to stay alive.
That was as good as it got for the Jester from Leicester, though, with Allen making a 59, breaking down, but after Selby made a fight of it, getting over the line to win 6-2.
‘It started out like a really good game but then just got a little scrappy,’ said Allen. ‘Sometimes the balls dictate and we both missed a few shots.
‘I can definitely say that’s the most luck I’ve had in a long, long time. That was ridiculous at times. It was just meant to be for me today.’
Selby agreed, saying: ‘It was brutal out there. Sometimes you think it’s not meant to be. But you know what, when Mark got his chances he took them a lot better than what I did and I wish him all the best.’
With or without good fortune, Allen is building an impressive string of results, with this his sixth semi-final run of the season.
‘It’s consistent form but I want to win consistently, I don’t want to just keep getting to semi-finals,’ he said. ‘I’ve shown consistent form for a while now and you have to get confidence from that.’
Allen also felt he got the better of the renowned tactical master in the safety battles, which he was more pleased with than if he had blasted him away with big breaks.
‘It’s probably the first time I’ve played Mark where I felt like I was getting the better of the safety side,’ he added.
‘Take the bits of luck I had out of it, I still felt I was dictating play, I just didn’t score the way I had been. Any win against Mark is a great win but it’s nice to do it that way. Normally I have to score really well, win frames in one visit, it was a very different game today and I still won it.’
Up next for the 2018 champion in the semi-finals is Shaun Murphy who impressively downed Neil Robertson 6-2 earlier on Thursday.
‘I’ll need to play better than I did today,’ Allen said of his next outing. ‘From what I’ve seen earlier Shaun was on fire. He can’t play much better than what he did earlier.’
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