Championship League Snooker 2009: Allen dramatically wins Group Two

Today marks the fourth and final day of this first run of the 2009 Championship League as Group Two comes to a conclusion. Check below for updates…

Again, for details of the tournament please click here to visit my post from the other day and for the latest scores from the Matchroom Sport website, please click here.

Match commentary

11am matches

The first two matches of the day saw another defeat for Peter Ebdon who must now be sure of heading out of the competition, while Mark Allen earned a creditable point against Ding Junhui.

12:30pm matches

Both the matches between Peter Ebdon and Joe Perry, as well as Stephen Hendry and Mark Williams currently stand at 1-1, so it is going to be an important next half an hour or so to see how they turn out.

Hendry and Williams finish up 2-2 after a 79 break from Mark in the final frame salvages a point. Not a great result for Stephen that because with Joe Perry now winning on the other table against Peter Ebdon, it means that three players will be level on five points, with Mark Allen just behind on four. Unfortunately for Hendry, his 4-0 loss to Ding Junhui yesterday means that his frame difference is like to be worse than most other players…

2pm matches

After Mark Williams took a close opening frame against Ding, the Chinese player responded with an excellent 117 to level it up at 1-1. Mark Allen meanwhile leads Ali Carter 2-0 and if he could take another frame to win the match, he would be in a great position to qualify for the semi-finals later today. It would be a poor result for Stephen Hendry though who looks like he will have to get a result against Ali Carter later on if he is to stand any chance of not going out of the competition…

Despite a 60 break from Williams, a missed red to the left-centre lets Ding in and he makes no mistake with a frame-winning 70 to secure a 2-2 draw.

I now have to go out for a couple of hours so check over at Matchroom Sport for the latest scores.

Ok back and in the next two matches, Stephen Hendry has lost 3-1 to Ali Carter, which means he is now out of the competition as he will finish in sixth place having finished all his matches. He joins Peter Ebdon who lost his sixth match out of six against Ding Junhui, completing a miserable week for him.

So what does this mean for the semis? They will be as follows:

Ding Junhui v Joe Perry

Mark Allen v Ali Carter

So it’s semi-final time and already Ding is rattling in the big breaks, taking the opening frame with a 105, his sixth century of the week. Ali Carter meanwhile leads Mark Allen in the other match.

Both matches now level at 1-1 though, the highlight of the second frames being an 85 from Allen to restore parity with Carter. And now the players who were behind after one frame both lead, Allen and Perry leading 2-1…

And a break of 57 puts Allen through into the final, what has Ali Carter got to do to win one of these events?

In the final he plays last year’s champion Joe Perry who recorded an excellent 3-1 win over Ding Junhui. For the second time this week then, Ding has topped the table with some sensational snooker, but fallen in the semi-finals with defeats to Carter and Perry.

Excellent stuff from Perry, a 125 break to get the match off to a great start and now he doubles his lead with a 102. Just one more frame needed now and he will join Mark Selby in the winners group…

But wow what a turn around from Mark Allen, breaks of 91 and 68 brought him level at 2-2 before a more scrappy final frame went his way to secure an excellent 3-2 win. After an inconsistent season so far, it is nice to see a young player with the obvious talent of Mark Allen win a group like this. Hopefully his Masters debut will be just as impressive!