Mark Allen became the sixth former champion to reach the quarter-finals of this year's Johnstone's Paint Masters as he beat debutant Si Jiahui 6-2 with a fine display in London.
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China's 22-year-old Si is recognised as one of snooker's best young talents and has leapt into the world's top 16, but Allen's vast experience was too much for him at Alexandra Palace as the Northern Irishman controlled most of the contest and ran out a comfortable winner. He will face Mark Selby on Thursday evening and so far all six players into the quarter-finals are former winners of the title, as Judd Trump meets Ding Junhui and Neil Robertson takes on Shaun Murphy.
World number four Allen comes into this week full of confidence having won the Riyadh Season Snooker Championship just before Christmas and he looked sharp tonight, making a century and three more breaks over 70 as he marched into the quarter-finals of this event for the tenth time.
The opening frame lasted 40 minutes and came down to a safety exchange on the last red, Allen trapping his opponent in a snooker and taking the chance that followed to go 1-0 up. Si showed his quality with a superb break of 103 to level, before Allen compiled runs of 111 and 70 to lead 3-1 at the interval.
A run of 60 helped Si pulled one back, but Allen responded with an excellent break of 94 then dominated frame seven for 5-2. World number 13 Si had a clear scoring chance in the eighth but made just 6 before missing a simple red to a top corner, and Allen finished strongly with a break of 80.
"I played well, my safety was very good and I made it tough for him," said Allen. "If he had potted ridiculous long ones and made breaks then so be it, but as it turned out I felt played better than him.
"He played so well at the Crucible (in 2023) so he is not scared of the big occasion. I just needed to play my game and make it hard for him. He pushed the boat out a bit because he probably didn't fancy getting into safety battles. There was one at 3-2 when he went for a plant, when he had an easy safety. At that stage he was back in the game so there was no need for him to go for it, that was a bit of inexperience.
"I can always improve and that's why I work so hard in practice. But I have to enjoy those kind of performances. These are the events I want to win because it's the best of the best. I always look forward to playing Mark Selby, I have a good record against him. Hopefully it will be a repeat of last year (when Allen won 6-5) which was high quality. Nearly every time we play our matches are close."