Mark Allen has issued an apology for his interview with Rob Walker as the 2024 British Open commenced in Cheltenham on Monday.
But the Northern Irishman stopped short of retracting his outspoken comments regarding the playing conditions inside the Centaur.
Allen beat Gary Wilson 4-3 to reach the last 64 of the 2024/25 snooker season’s fifth ranking tournament.
The 2022 runner-up struggled for top form, and the Pistol duly offered fierce criticism of the table in particular following the game’s conclusion.
“The conditions out there are absolutely embarrassing,” a fired-up Mark Allen told Rob Walker in ITV’s post-match interview.
“It’s some of the worst weather outside and they’ve left the massive transport doors open. It’s so cold, it’s so humid out there. The table needs to be burned.”
“The cushions are just unplayable, uncontrollable – it was heavy. The speed was decent, but there’s new guys doing the tables this year, and they’re clearly not up to it.
“I pride myself on preparing properly for tournaments with good conditions. You turn up and you don’t get them. It’s not good enough.”
But Allen later wrote on social media platform X that he perhaps shouldn’t have been so aggressive with the interviewer.
“After having some time to calm down, I’d like to apologise to Rob Walker for that interview,” the world number three wrote.
“My anger wasn’t directed at him, and he definitely deserved a better interview.”
“My frustrations were 100% at the conditions, which frankly haven’t been anywhere near good enough this season.”
Allen will next face Aaron Hill in the FA-Cup style ranking event that incorporates a random draw element in each round.
All of the top 16 seeds had their round-of-128 fixtures held over to the venue stages following a preliminary phase that was held in Leicester last month.
The biggest shock saw defending British Open champion Mark Williams crash out after a 4-1 loss to Malaysia’s Rory Thor.
Ali Carter’s woes since winning Championship League Snooker at the start of the season also continued with the Captain downed by up-and-coming rookie Bulcsu Revesz.
Ding Junhui and Tom Ford were other top 16 members to crash out at the first hurdle following respective 4-3 defeats to Hill and Gong Chenzhi, while Barry Hawkins lost to Liam Davies.
The likes of world number one Judd Trump and world champion Kyren Wilson safely advanced, however.
Mark Selby, Luca Brecel, Zhang Anda, and Jak Jones additionally progressed while John Higgins and Shaun Murphy set up an intriguing second-round battle against one another.
Ronnie O’Sullivan withdrew on the eve of the event with his amateur replacement Lewis Ullah overcoming Manasawin Phetmalaikul.
2024 British Open draw
Round of 64 (bo7)
Aaron Hill vs Mark Allen
Yuan Sijun vs Robbie Williams
Ashley Carty vs Long Zehuang
Bulcsu Revesz vs Stuart Bingham
David Gilbert vs Ben Woollaston
Sunny Akani vs Antoni Kowalski
Mark Selby w/o Lim Kok Leong
Hossein Vafaei vs Zhang Anda
Tian Pengfei vs Luca Brecel
Rory Thor vs Mark Joyce
Allan Taylor vs Lyu Haotian
Hammad Miah vs Ben Mertens
Neil Robertson vs Chris Totten
Kyren Wilson vs Duane Jones
David Grace vs Lewis Ullah
Ryan Day vs Judd Trump
Haris Tahir vs Simon Blackwell
Ma Hailong vs Marco Fu
Graeme Dott vs Zhou Yuelong
Stan Moody vs Michael Holt
Gong Chenzhi vs Xu Si
Jak Jones vs Alfie Burden
Ricky Walden vs Jamie Clarke
Elliot Slessor vs Martin O’Donnell
Stephen Maguire vs Liam Graham
Anton Kazakov vs Liam Davies
Thepchaiya Un-Nooh vs Noppon Saengkham
Chris Wakelin vs Wu Yize
Si Jiahui vs Iulian Boiko
Cheung Ka Wai vs Oliver Lines
Mark Davis vs Xiao Guodong
John Higgins vs Shaun Murphy
Click here to view the full draw (snooker.org)
Featured photo credit: WST
O’Sullivan has only played in the British Open once since the event was revived on 2021. In 2022, he suffered a first round exit to Alexander Ursenbacher.
The Rocket has made 14 appearances in the tournament as a whole. On half of those occasions he’s made at least the semis.