Jamie Clarke sees off Mark Allen

 

Jamie Clarke stunned everyone as he eliminated tournament favorite Mark Allen in the 2920 World Snooker Championship.

25-year-old snooker player and current world number 89, Jamie Clarke managed to pull off a surprise win by defeating, strong favorite, and Mark Allen 10-8 on a day of first-round at the World Championship. It was a huge upset that saw Clarke beat world number 4, Allen.

Welsh debutant Clarke was ranked 89 and was even the lowest-ranked player in the tournament. However, he showed his worth as be overturned a 6-4 deficit against Allen to win 10-8.

It was a memorable match for Clarke, who had only made one semi-final finish at a ranking event in his career and lost in the first round at six different tournaments this year.

Allen also made a record-equalling five centuries in the game.  The 34-year-old made breaks of 136, 105, 122, 105 and 105, but Clarke was focused and won four frames in a row for an 8-6 advantage.

Allen came back fighting, but Clarke had a break of 74 and snatched the 18th frame, thus giving him probably the biggest win of his career so far.

Also yesterday, Thailand’s Noppon Saengkham shockingly beat 2005 champion Shaun Murphy 10-4, after he converted a 6-3 lead on his second appearance at the Crucible.

Saengkham will now go up against Mark Selby in the next round.

Three-time champion Marl Selby progressed after a convincing 10-6 win over debutant Jordan Brown.

Former world number one Selby held a narrow 5-4 lead over Brown as they headed into the second session, but kept his cool to comfortably win despite admitting some lapses in focus.

In other matches, world number 60 Martin Gould put up an impressive showing with four centuries to open up a solid 7-2 lead over Stephen Maguire.

 

Written by: Collins Nwokolo