Mark Allen won the 2024 Riyadh Season Snooker Championship on Friday with a 5-1 victory over Luca Brecel in the final.
The Northern Irishman compiled a brace of century breaks in the title-deciding affair to emerge with the silverware in Saudi Arabia.
Allen pockets the £250,000 champion’s cheque, prize money which won’t count towards the world rankings as the event was classified as an invitational.
The Pistol entered the competition in the quarter-final stage where he ousted Mark Selby with a 4-2 scoreline.
Allen then defeated reigning champion Ronnie O’Sullivan in the penultimate round, scoring a high break of 134 to also beat the Rocket 4-2.
Brecel, who beat Zhang Anda, Kyren Wilson and Mark Williams, began the final battle strongly by taking the opening frame.
But that was as good as it got for the Belgian Bullet as he duly lost the subsequent five.
It’s the second time that the 29 year-old has finished runner-up in the tournament having also missed out on glory in March when it was initially branded as the World Masters of Snooker.
For Allen, it’s a strong way to finish the calendar year having been denied in a couple of dramatic semi-final ties at the UK Championship and the Scottish Open recently.
That being said, the world number four is scheduled to participate in the World Open qualifiers on Sunday in what would be his final outing of 2024.
The Riyadh Season Snooker Championship was once again a glitzy affair that underlined the riches on offer in Saudi Arabia.
However, there were some embarrassing delays to the action, including on the opening day when a lighting issue forced an interlude in the first-round match between Zhang Anda and local wildcard Ahmed Aseeri.
Zhang was on course to make the tournament’s first maximum break at the time, and with it a potential opportunity to pot the controversial golden ball for a 167 break and a $1,000,000 jackpot bonus.
But despite potting a few more balls when they finally returned to the table, the Chinese cueist ultimately broke down on 97.
In the end, the gimmicky golden ball worth 20 points wasn’t struck in anger for the second successive staging of the event.
Mark Allen, though, won’t mind too much about that – he is a quarter of a million pounds richer after winning three matches in the space of two short days.
2024 Snooker Championship draw
Round 1
Ding Junhui 4-0 Abdulraouf Saigh
Zhang Anda 4-0 Ahmed Aseeri
Round 2
Ding Junhui 4-0 Shaun Murphy
Luca Brecel 4-0 Zhang Anda
Quarter-Finals
Ronnie O’Sullivan 4-0 Ding Junhui
Mark Allen 4-2 Mark Selby
Mark Williams 4-3 Judd Trump
Luca Brecel 4-3 Kyren Wilson
Semi-Finals
Mark Allen 4-2 Ronnie O’Sullivan
Luca Brecel 4-2 Mark Williams
Final
Mark Allen 5-1 Luca Brecel
Featured photo credit: WST
wonderfull.maybe he can make a substantial donation to amnesty international in the plane back home.