Ronnie O’Sullivan beat Mark Williams 10-9 in an exciting Tour Championship quarterfinal. Ronnie O’Sullivan survived Mark Williams’ comeback as he won a thrilling Tour Championship quarterfinal in Llandudno. Ronnie O’Sullivan scored five centuries but still needed to win the final tiebreaker to beat Mark Williams.
Ronnie O’Sullivan was pinned back, but black’s 127 set him up to win before old rival Mark Williams called again, with stunning yellow and green pots to take the match to the final frame. Mark Williams was disappointed that he missed the opportunity to beat Ronnie O’Sullivan for only the second time in 14 league games in 20 years. Mark Williams bounced back from his inability to get out of the game in the fifth frame to take the lead to 3-2 before O’Sullivan hit his second century with a Tour Championship classic in a sublime 128 break to take a breather once again. In the end, Ronnie O’Sullivan made a sensational pot after Mark Williams unusually missed a long red, and the match was his. The defeated finalist of the past few years continued to show some nervousness early in the second, and despite scoring some quick points, a missed black that made smallpox’s jaws tremble gave Williams a chance to line up again.
Despite some poor results, Mark reached the final of the UK Championship after a decisive semi-final victory over Stuart Bingham in early December. Mark could not go beyond the semi-finals in the second half of this season. However, Mark had failed in the World Open final the previous season; this time, he did.
In the 2010 British Championships, Allen reached the semi-finals for the first time but lost to the world champion 9-5. It took him three centuries to knock out Mark Selby 5-4, 6-5 at the inaugural China Championship, but then 9-3 for the trophy, and John Higgins missed the tie Ronnie O’Sullivan’s five title chances 12 months ago; he lost to Mark Selby despite leading by six frames midway through the final. During the 2010 Masters, Allen defeated World champion John Higgins 6-3 in the Round of 16 but lost 5-6 to eventual champion Mark Selby in the quarterfinals.
He faced Ronnie O’Sullivan in the second round; Confident and indifferent to the reputation of his opponents, Allen beat the defending champion 13:11 to reach the quarter-finals at the 2009 World Championship. At the 2010 UK Championship, Allen finished 11th and played against Matthew Stevens in the first round. , after recovering from a 9-6 loss and seeing Matthew Stevens lose the pot in the final lineup, winning the match 10-7 before winning 10-9. Allen started the season with second-round losses to Mark Williams at the Wuxi Classic and Judd Trump at the Shanghai Masters.
