Mark Allen is over the moon to get the better of Fan Zhengyi, especially winning frames at points when he wasn’t playing his best snooker.
Speaking to the BBC, Allen said: “Very happy with that performance, it was a bit of a shaky start yesterday and I thought Fan was very good at the start. I was very happy overnight to be 5-4 in front and played some good snooker today, stole two frames that I had no real right to win.
“It made the scoreboard look a little flattering at 9-4 at the interval, could have easily been 7-6 and game on, but I knew I was going to get chances. I didn’t close out as clinically as I would have liked but finished off nicely.
“Honestly at 3-0 down I was thinking just get four out of this, instead I managed to get five. You can only control the next shot and the next frame and that’s what I have got much better at, I probably wouldn’t have done that a few years ago.”