This second semi-final tonight saw Neil Robertson take on Mark Allen for a place in the final. Click below to read what happened…
Neil Robertson 6-4 Mark Allen
Joining Matthew Stevens in tomorrow’s Bahrain final will be Australia’s Neil Robertson who put in a very impressive performance tonight to defeat Mark Allen 6-4.
It was the man from Northern Ireland who started the better as Allen swept into a 2-0 lead with breaks of 78 and 112. Robertson has played well this week though and responded in style with runs of 68 and 86 to go into the interval level at 2-2.
When play resumed it was the world number 10 who maintained the momentum as he went 4-2 up, and looked like making it 5-2, but a brave final pink from Allen kept him in touch as he got back to within one frame of Robertson.
It looked like this might be crucial and prove to be a turning point for Mark, but Neil responded in the best possible fashion with a 100 break in frame eight. Though Mark pulled another one back, it was Neil’s day as he wrapped up the match with scoring visits of 45 and 33 in frame ten.
It is great to see Neil playing well again and looking more like the player who won two ranking event titles the season before last. Snooker could do with an on-form Robertson and hopefully he will keep it up tomorrow and help to give us a cracking final. With at least 4,000 points in the back, he has also done his provisional ranking the world of good and so long as he keeps playing well for the rest of the season, should retain a spot in the elite top 16 for another year.
As for Mark Allen I think that it is only a matter of time until he wins a ranking event. I had a feeling that it might be this week but it was not to be today as Robertson’s superior all-round game proved too strong. The points earned this week will take him up to around 11th in the provisional rankings at least, good progress for one so relatively new to the main tour.