Tuesday evening, and the story from Belfast this afternoon was not really about the snooker. Mark Allen played his first match in 171 days, lost it 4–2 to his close friend Jordan Brown, and then told TNT Sports he can't see a future for himself in the game. A couple of hours later the world number one went out as well. In Quezon City, AJ Manas threw away an 8–3 lead.
Belfast — Allen: "At the minute I'm just trying to survive"
Jordan Brown beat Mark Allen 4–2 in an all-Antrim first-round match at the Waterfront Hall (per snooker.org and BBC Sport NI). It was Allen's first match since May's World Championship semi-final, when he missed a black off the spot for a place in the final and then lost to the eventual champion, Wu Yize. RTÉ says he had pulled out of the first five ranking events of the season.
- The start: Allen won the opening frame. Brown took the next two. He won the third by potting brown to black after Allen had led by 17 with four colours left (per The Irish News).
- The fourth: Allen potted the last red and all the colours to level at 2–2. He won the frame by a single point.
- The finish: Brown made 53 to go 3–2 up, then closed it out with an 80, the highest break of the match.
Allen broke down during his TNT Sports interview afterwards (per the Belfast Telegraph). "Not good if I'm honest, really overwhelmed. I'm in a bad place at the minute," he said. "I think if I wasn't playing Jordan I wouldn't have come back. I felt if I was going to play one last time, playing here at the Waterfront, where it all started in 2005, against one of my best mates, I thought that was a better way to sign out."
When he was asked whether retirement was next, he said "Yeah." Then he went on: "I've been flooded with support, but the problems are within. I just don't see a future with snooker in it if I'm honest. It is sad to say because it is all I've loved to do since I was 12, but the last few months have been really difficult." (Quotes per RTÉ.)
The two of them hugged at the end, and both were in tears. Brown is 39 and has dropped outside the top 64, so he is fighting for his own tour place. He said he had lost his mum recently. "I take no pleasure in winning that match today because there's a lot bigger things going on in this world," he told RTÉ. WST says it's the first time he has ever beaten Allen. He plays Michael Holt next. BBC Sport NI counts Allen, 40 and a former world number one, as the 10th top-16 player to go out in the first round.
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Belfast — and then the world number one
Gao Yang beat Zhao Xintong 4–2, winning four frames in a row from 2–0 down (per snooker.org and WST). WST lists Zhao as the world number one. TNT Sports' live blog said the 2025 world champion didn't miss a ball in the first two frames. Then Gao got going:
- Frame three: Gao made a 71 to get on the board.
- Frame four: Gao again, after Zhao's first miss of the match had let him back in. 2–2.
- Frame five: a 112 put Gao ahead for the first time.
- Frame six: Gao led 71–0. Zhao needed snookers, tried briefly to come back, then conceded.
Gao plays David Gilbert on Wednesday. On the other table, Noppon Saengkham beat Thanawat Tirapongpaiboon 4–3 in the all-Thai match, and he plays Scott Donaldson next. Earlier, Michael Holt beat Zhou Yuelong 4–1. WST says Holt is "building some momentum" after a deep run in Shenzhen.
The last 32 started at 7pm with Kyren Wilson v Thepchaiya Un-Nooh, Louis Heathcote v Matthew Selt and Wang Xinbo v Mateusz Baranowski. At 9pm the defending champion Jack Lisowski plays Anthony McGill, and Joe O'Connor plays Ricky Walden. We'll have those results in the morning.
Quezon City — Santos turns round 8–3 against Manas
After our lunchtime post, the Philippines Open lost another big local name. Rommel Janael Santos beat AJ Manas 10–9. Manas led 8–3, Santos got back to 8–8, and he won the hill-hill decider. Twelve months ago Manas was the Reyes Cup MVP and a quarter-finalist here, the World Nineball Tour pointed out. "I was 8–3 up, but I missed the 6-ball to get on the hill, and he took his chance," Manas said. "He played really well, so he deserved the win."
WNT's day-one report also gave us the scores we didn't have at lunchtime, along with what the players said:
- Rodrigo Geronimo 10–0 Francisco Bustamante: "I feel tired, especially after last week's Reyes Cup," said Bustamante, who captained Asia there. "I missed a lot of balls. That's pool, you know."
- David Alcaide 10–1 Rodlin John Bautista: the defending champion said he was "just going to have fun and enjoy it."
- Aloysius Yapp 10–2 Raphael Dabreo: "I started really badly. I was using a different shaft and struggling a lot, so I switched back," said the world number one. He admitted he needs to "step my game up".
- Johann Chua 10–1 Tony Piazza (score per Dugout Philippines): "If I play like I did today, who knows? I might get the title."
- Duong Quoc Hoang 10–0 Aleksandar Atanasov, in 52 minutes.
- Carlo Biado also won without dropping a rack, and Albert Januarta beat Yuki Komiya in 13 racks (per Dugout Philippines).
- Edwin Dela Cruz Gamas 10–6 Alex Pagulayan: the final score comes from Pagulayan's own billiard-products account on X, which calls Gamas his protégé.
- Anton Raga beat Jhon Narvaez (per WNT).
On losing 10–6 to Meynard Tipawan, which ended his Mosconi Cup hopes, Moritz Neuhausen said: "I missed the same ball three times, so what can you expect? I've not played well, and I've paid the price."
Korea — gold in Jeju, a late night in Goyang
At the National Sports Festival in Seogwipo, Jeju, Gwangju's Choi Wan-young beat Kim Haeng-jik 100–86 in Monday's men's one-cushion final (per Namdo Ilbo). Park Yong-jun of Jeonnam won the men's snooker gold. That ends Lee Dae-gyu's run: Billiards & Sports says he had won both the snooker and the English billiards at each of the last two Festivals. Gwangju also beat Gyeongbuk 8–7 for gold in the billiards mixed doubles. The men's three-cushion was scheduled for today, with world number one Cho Myung-woo, Heo Jeong-han and defending champion Jung Ye-sung all in the draw. We couldn't find a result.
It's now the early hours in Goyang, and we still couldn't find any results from the late PBA session (Daniel Sánchez v Park Nam-soo, Kang Dong-gung v Moon Ho-beom). The same goes for this morning's LPBA last 32, where Kim Ga-young played Hwang Min-ji and Jung Su-bin played Park Ga-eun. We won't guess. The evening LPBA session had Han Ji-eun v Hida Orie and Kim Da-hee v Lee Woo-kyung, per Infoarounds. Lee Mi-rae v Kim Jin-a and Park Jung-hyun v Yong Hyun-ji are on Wednesday.
Elsewhere
- Landywood: World Billiards confirmed that David Causier is through to the knockout stages of his title defence. There are still no official scores online. The Women's World Championship is on Wednesday and the final is on Thursday.
- Doha: the Qatar federation is still posting player profiles and highlights from the World Cup 10-Ball qualifiers, but no results.
- Heathrow: the WPA Blackball World Championships men's doubles was due to start at 6pm. When we checked just before 7pm, CueScore still hadn't published a draw or any scores.
- Q Tour Europe: event five is at Landywood on 3–6 December, and entries are open on WPBSA SnookerScores (per the WPBSA).
Coming up / where to watch
- Northern Ireland Open: the last 32 continues tonight and on Wednesday. Gao Yang v David Gilbert and Jordan Brown v Michael Holt are still to come. It's on TNT Sports, Eurosport, HBO Max and WST Play.
- Philippines Open: day two starts at 5am UK time at Gateway Mall. The Reyes Cup winners Shane Van Boening, Fedor Gorst, Francisco Sánchez Ruiz, Aleksa Pecelj and Ralf Souquet all play their first matches tomorrow. It's live on WNT TV, and on One Sports in the Philippines.
- Goyang: the PBA men's last 128 and the LPBA last 32 both finish on Wednesday.
Feature image: “Mark Allen at Snooker German Masters (DerHexer) 2015-02-05 02” by DerHexer, via Wikimedia Commons, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
