MARK Allen lost his opening match in the last 32 of the inaugural Saudi Arabia Snooker Masters in Riyadh on Tuesday.
The Antrim man was beaten 5-1 by China’s world number 35 Xiao Guodong in the £2million event, his only frame success coming courtesy of a break of 104 in the third.
The result is likely to see Allen fall further down the ranking list. He lost his start-of-season number one ranking to Judd Trump at the Xi’an Grand Prix last week and with huge money on offer this week, including £500,000 for the winner, he’s likely to give up a few more places.
Trump, meanwhile, produced an incredible comeback from 4-0 to Wu Yize to reach the last 16.
The Bristolian, who was beaten in the final in Xi’an by Kyren Wilson, reeled off breaks of 56, 101, 61, 89 and 55 to turn the game around and set up a clash with Jack Lisowski, who beat World Championship runner-up Jak Jones 5-3.
Trump admitted he was searching for flights home before his comeback, while Wu, who narrowly missed a difficult long red in the fifth frame which would have given him a chance to seal the whitewash, scored just 35 points after the interval and none in the last three frames.
“I was looking at flights home, I was on Skyscanner I swear,” Trump told Eurosport when asked what he had done during the interval.
“It was expensive as well so I knew I had to win after that. I’m over the moon because the table was playing very strange at the start, the ball was flinging off everywhere as if the balls had been polished.
“I can normally tell when I miss and there were a lot of times when I thought I hit it OK and it was just going nowhere near. It was just about trying to find some momentum and belief because I had none in the first four frames.
“When I got to 4-2 I started to believe then because I got my scoring back and I wasn’t missing easy balls. My safety was very good and he barely had a chance to be fair.
“I’m very, very happy with that. That was one of my best wins just in the manner of digging in and my self-belief.
“This is a big event and I really didn’t want to go home in the first round, especially in the manner of being 4-0 down. I think I can hold my head high for whatever happens the rest of the event.”
There were also wins on Tuesday afternoon for Neil Robertson (5-3 v Mark Selby), Shaun Murphy (5-2 v Yuan Sijun); Scott Donaldson (5-1 v Barry Hawkins); Gary Wilson (5-2 v David Gilbert) and Elliott Slessor (5-3 v Ali Carter)
Jordan Brown, meanwhile, lost to David Gilbert for the second time in a week in his last-48 game on Monday.
Brown had beaten the two-times World Championship semi-finalist five times in a row before the Englishman won their sixth meeting 5-2 in the Xi’an Grand Prix, and Gilbert again got the better of the Antrim man, winning 5-3 after Brown had levelled at 3-3.
