World Snooker Championship 2023: Mark Allen takes early lead over Mark Selby after tough session

Mark Allen offered up a passable impression of his World Championship semi-final opponent, as he eked out a 5-3 lead over Mark Selby on the back of a tough-as-teak display.

Selby made the only century of the session in the opening frame, but was never at his best and came up against a tenacious and determined opponent who was not afraid to go into the long grass.

Allen could have wilted after Selby took frames four and five to establish a lead, but the Northern Irishman reeled off three on the spin thanks to some hard snooker to take a 5-3 lead into Friday’s second session.

Allen was offered a half chance and took it on feeling there was no safety alternative. He got close to the pot, but it wriggled in the jaws. It presented a chance to Selby, and as Matthew Selt, Gary Wilson and Higgins found out to their cost, that is not good territory to be in.

The early red showed Selby’s cueing was good, and he wrapped up a clearance of 123 for his seventh century of the championship.

Matching and beating Selby in the safety game is one of the toughest challenges in snooker. That’s what Allen did in the second and it set up a break of 63, but he missed frame-ball red to invite a counter.

The only surprise was Selby missed the penultimate red, and Allen picked off the balls required to draw level.

The most successful player in the 2022/23 season, Allen has reinvented himself as a player and is not fazed by safety exchanges. He got the better of Selby once again in the third, achieving the rare feat of making the four-time champion take a risk.

The frame was going nowhere, only for Selby to break cover. One shot later he was snookered behind the black. Allen then got in for a break of 66 to edge himself in front.

After winning a tense safety exchange in the third, Allen had a chance to take a lead into the first interval of the match but he missed a relatively straightforward red to the bottom right.

He was off colour after taking the opening frame with a century, but cashed in on the error from Allen to draw level at 2-2.

Selby showed some of the fluency that propelled him to the semi-finals in the fifth, picking off a break of 68 with pink and black tied up to move back in front.

A superb season has filled Allen with belief, and trading blows with Selby does not fill him with dread.

A break of 64 took him to the brink of winning the sixth, and he took a leaf out of his opponent’s book by sending balls onto cushions and Selby conceded after failing to gain any traction to bring the scores level at 3-3.

Selby demonstrated his outstanding table craft by handing Allen a safety puzzle to solve in the seventh. He took three minutes to come up with an answer – even asking referee Leo Scullion for his thoughts. It was an answer that earned him an A* as he somehow got the ball back to the baulk cushion.

Selby was left with an extremely tough red, with no real safety option, and when it stayed up Allen knocked in a break of 60 to move ahead.

A superb safety escape crafted Allen a chance in the seventh, but it was a glorious long pot that did the same in the eighth.

He did not hold back in splitting the pack off the blue one shot later, and was rewarded for his endeavour as the reds scattered superbly.

While he was accused of being overly methodical at times earlier in the season, Allen raced through a break of 78 to take a 5-3 lead into the second session.

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