Mark Allen defeats Barry Hawkins to reach World Snooker semi-finals
Mark Allen has advanced to the semi-finals of the World Snooker Championship after securing a tense 13-11 victory over Barry Hawkins at Sheffield’s Crucible Theatre.
The 40-year-old Northern Irishman remains on course to become the oldest first-time world champion in the modern era.
He is also just two match wins away from completing snooker’s prestigious Triple Crown, having previously lifted both the UK Championship and Masters trophies.
The sport’s ultimate prize has frustratingly eluded the world number three across 19 previous attempts, making this only his third appearance in the final four.
Crucible tension and high-quality breaks
Resuming the Wednesday morning session tied at 8-8, the former Masters champion quickly seized the opening two frames.
However, he was swiftly pegged back by the 2013 finalist, who produced impressive breaks of 70 and 83 to level the contest once again.
The two veterans then fiercely traded frames before the Antrim-born cueist constructed his third century of the match to edge 12-11 ahead.
During a dramatic 24th frame, he took decisive control with a break of 59 to seal his passage to the revered single-table setup.
Victory was confirmed when his English opponent crucially underhit an attempted snooker on the pink, just moments after fluking a red that had threatened to force a final-frame decider.
Chasing snooker history in Sheffield
The semi-finalist will now prepare to face either Wu Yize or Hossein Vafaei in a gruelling best-of-33 frame encounter starting on Thursday at 19:00 BST.
Should he ultimately claim the trophy, he will eclipse Stuart Bingham’s age record set in 2015 when the Englishman triumphed aged 38 years and 343 days.
