In the early morning of October 18, Beijing time, the 2021 World Snooker Northern Ireland Open came to an end. In the final championship battle, Allen's opening stage was dominant, Higgins gradually caught up and scored high points in the second stage, but he took the lead 8-6 to get the match point, but he failed and was completed by Allen 9-8.
In the professional snooker ranking list, the 46-year-old "75 Three Masters" are still all in the top 10, which has to make us deeply impressed by their talent. Higgins, who is between World No. 3 O'Sullivan and No. 8 Williams, has jumped to No. 6 in the world as he soared on Monday.
"The Witcher" staged many reversals in this Northern Ireland tournament, including the quarter-final 0-3 behind 4 consecutive wins to eliminate the "Golden Left Hand", the quarter-final 0-2 backward through counterattack to defeat Gilbert 5-3, the semi-final first lost two sets, 6 consecutive shots 50 + high score to defeat Yan Bingtao, each game showed his deep internal skills.
Mark Allen, the "small steel cannon of Northern Ireland" who played at home, has played equally well these days. In the second round, he blasted a single-shot breaker to beat the "Wales Dragons" Stevens 4-1, in the third round with a one-shot breaker and two-shot 60+ to beat Maguire 4-3, the quarterfinals struggled to win 5 consecutive sets after losing 3 sets, 5-3 to return to the 1st place in the provisional world ranking Trump, and there were still single-shot over 100 in the semifinals, ending Wharton's upset trip 6-3.
Prior to this final, Higgins and Allen had played each other 22 times in the past, coincidentally winning 11 games each, and the two sides were evenly divided. Of course, in terms of the overall height of his career, although Allen has long been ranked in the top 16 and is one of the best of the post-85 players, the number of large-scale ranking championships he has won so far is 5, which is not the same as the glory of Higgins's 31 crowns.
In the first set of the final, Higgins was fouled while dribbling with a high-legged club in the middle of the game, the attack came to an abrupt halt, and Allen scored a 44-point shot to grab the opening red 78-21.
In the second set, Higgins opened the scoring with a running shot to score the far table red ball, but the mother ball returned to the top of the library and had to turn to the defensive match; Allen found a line of the big angle red ball in the middle and far platform, and he decisively attacked to open the offensive prelude, and the single 82 points changed the big score to 2-0.
In the third set, Higgins quickly scored by nudging the far red ball, and the inning gave Allen another chance to get up and directly play a single 123-point clean sheet to win. In the fourth set, with a fluctuating feel on both sides and a slowed pace, Mark Allen was given relatively more chances to win 70-6 with a 3-1 lead to break.
In the fifth set, Mark Allen had a chance first, but the score was very limited, but Higgins came later to win with a 68 points, 68-11 to chase the big score to 2-3. In the sixth set, Higgins took the lead, but when he got 21 points, the K ball was not effective, and chose to run the ball to defend; after that, the two sides made many mistakes in and out, and even sent each other bag lipstick balls, but even so, no one could win directly; at the last moment, Mark Allen won the initiative through snooker, and won 70-47.
In the seventh inning, Higgins scored a simple black ball error after scoring 22 points, but did not leave a chance for Allen; after a long tug-of-war, Higgins broke the dull situation again, and won 78-0 with a single 55-point attack, chasing the big score to 3-4.
In the eighth set, Higgins narrowly lost his offensive goal, and Allen's single shot of 58 points passed by the victory; Higgins returned to the hard-line style at a critical moment, accumulating points several times, and finally cleared the stage with a delicate score of 64-63 to complete the single set. In the first half, the two sides were 4-4.
In the first four sets of the second stage, the two sides continued the rhythm of allen leading the way and the wizard catching up in the first half. In the ninth inning, Allen led again with a single 70 to 47, and Higgins quickly tied with a single 63 inning; in the eleventh inning, Allen blasted a single 85-point clean sheet higgins, and the Wizards scored a 59-pointer in the twelfth inning to bring the big score to 6-6.
After the break, in the thirteenth and fourteenth innings, Higgins suddenly reversed the momentum of the game, and he scored 64 points and 136 points in a row, and the big score was 8-6, the first to see the championship point. However, Allen suppressed the Wizards through a slow play in the fifteenth inning, saving a match point 51-6; in the sixteenth, Higgins had a good chance, but Allen dragged the game into the decider 80-43 with a single shot of 58.
In the seventeenth set, the two sides tightened again, the attack and defense were not continuous enough, and finally Allen won 65-31, and the big score was 9-8 to beat Higgins and win the sixth major ranking championship of his career. Judging from the offensive data of the whole game, Allen shot 5 50+, but did not have a high score of over 100, and Higgins blasted out two over 100 plus 5 50+.
After this campaign, Mark Allen's latest world ranking rose to 9th, and Ding Junhui ranked 10th, with only a narrow £8,000 prize gap between the two sides.