Mark Allen on massive games and ‘ridiculous match’ in World Snooker Championship draw
'A ridiculous match for the first round.'
The World Snooker Championship draw has thrown up some amazing ties for the last 32, with Mark Allen picking out some ‘massive’ and ‘ridiculous’ clashes for the opening round.
Qualifying finished on Wednesday night and the top 16 learned their opponents for the last 32 on Thursday morning in the all-important draw.
With a string of great players coming through qualifying there were definitely some names to avoid for the top players and they could not all manage it.
World number three Allen was making the draw live on BBC Five Live and picked out four highlights straight away.
‘There’s a couple of massive games there,’ he said. ‘Luca [Brecel] vs [Dave] Gilbert to kick things off on Saturday.
‘Ronnie [O’Sullivan] against Jackson [Page], who loves the big occasion. [Judd] Trump against [Hossein] Vafaei, Ding [Junhui] against [Jack] Lisowski a ridiculous match for the first round as well.’
The Pistol also liked the look of a Leicester derby between four-time world champion Mark Selby and debutant Joe O’Connor.
‘What a match-up with Joe O’Connor, two Leicester boys, two good friends so that could be a good one as well,’ he said.
As for Allen’s own draw, it might not be as headline-grabbing as some, but he has a lot of respect for world number 45 Robbie Williams, who makes a fourth Crucible appearance this year.
‘Robbie is someone I’m a big admirer of actually and the way he came through that qualifier the other day from 9-8 down, he’s a class player but they’re all good players at the end of the day,’ said Allen.
World Snooker Championship draw
Luca Brecel vs Dave Gilbert
Ronnie O’Sullivan vs Jackson Page
Judd Trump vs Hossein Vafaei
Mark Allen vs Robbie Williams
Mark Selby vs Joe O’Connor
Mark Williams vs Si Jiahui
Ding Junhui vs Jack Lisowski
Shaun Murphy vs Lyu Haotian
Ali Carter vs Stephen Maguire
Gary Wilson vs Stuart Bingham
Zhang Anda vs Jak Jones
Kyren Wilson vs Dominic Dale
John Higgins vs Jamie Jones
Tom Ford vs Ricky Walden
Barry Hawkins vs Ryan Day
Robert Milkins vs Pang Junxu
The World Championship first round schedule is available here.
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