MARK Allen ended a run of five successive defeats at the Masters by winning a decider in his first-round match against John Higgins.
The Antrim man won the title in 2018 but has lost his opening match every year since and he was determined to put that right in a topsy-turvy battle with the Scot.
After trailing 3-1, Allen won four frames in a row to go 5-3 up but Higgins battled hard to force the decider.
Allen, though, needed only one chance to win it, a break of 86 getting him over the line.
Higgins had earlier taken a 3-1 lead. The opening two frames were scrappy but Allen managed to level at 1-1 by fluking the black in frame two.
However, it was all Higgins in the next two as breaks of 83 and 80 gave him a 3-1 lead.
The game turned scrappy on the resumption but it was Allen who was gaining the upper hand reducing the deficit to 3-2 with a break of 48.
He won frame five on the pink despite needing four chances and then took the lead for the first time with a break of 58, his first half-century of the match.
Allen finally found some fluency to win his first frame in one visit thanks to a break of 123 in frame eight, but Higgins showed his battling qualities to win frames nine and 10 and level at 5-5.
Allen said: “It wasn’t a phenomenal contest, we were both a bit edgy, but any win against John is a good win so I will take it.
“Strangely I didn’t feel too bad in the last frame because 5-3 to 5-5 I didn’t feel like I’d done much wrong.
“I missed two really tricky shots, so I was looking forward to getting a chance and when John missed that long red I was fearing the worst but I got another chance and I made the most of it.”
