Mark Allen hits out at Shaun Murphy after Ronnie O’Sullivan comments - 'Must be that chip on your shoulder’

ByNigel Chiu

Updated 17/11/2022 at 18:50 GMT

Shaun Murphy’s claims that Ronnie O’Sullivan “grew up in incredible wealth” seemingly led to Mark Allen hitting out at the 2005 world champion. Murphy has been playing in pain this week at the UK Championship which Allen decided to use with a dig at his rival on Twitter. Stream the 2022 UK Championship and more top snooker action live and on-demand on discovery+.

Mark Allen has seemingly hit out at Shaun Murphy for his comments on Ronnie O’Sullivan after the 2005 world champion claimed The Rocket “grew up in incredible wealth”.

O’Sullivan has been very open about his lack of enjoyment for snooker this season, despite winning the Hong Kong Masters and Champion of Champions.

The 46-year-old says he “doesn’t care” about his performances and doesn’t see anyone who “has it” to become one of the all-time greats.

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"Ronnie in particular has one of the biggest platforms in the world. I hope he uses it to make the game better," said Murphy.

“Sometimes it feels like most of the Tour are going in the same direction, and others – and he’s not alone – are just going it alone.

“I don’t have O’Sullivan’s resume, I don’t have what I presume must be incredible wealth.

“He comes from an incredibly wealthy background and grew up in an incredible wealth. Most of the tour is not from that world.

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“For him and people like him with cabinet after cabinet full of trophies, it’s okay to say how meaningless the game is to them.

“But for the rest of us it means an awful lot because it not only feeds our life and looks after us today.

“I’m only 40, but I remember the village I grew up in. I know a life that would have been saved from total anonymity without this game. I will never forget that.

“A lot of players are now on tour talk about how the game doesn’t mean much to them, how much they don’t like it, and they don’t play it anymore for fun."

O’Sullivan has stated he is “not interested” in what players say about him.

• ‘O’Sullivan is playing on a different level’ – White wowed by Rocket’s form
• In-form Allen overcomes Wilson to make quarter-finals of UK Championship

On Thursday morning, prior to Murphy’s second round UK Championship match with Judd Trump, The Magician revealed he was close to withdrawing from the tournament due to neck and shoulder pain.

“In terrible pain today with my neck / shoulder,” tweeted Murphy. “Started getting worse two days ago and I could hardly play at all yesterday. Going to try everything to be ready to play at 1pm but right now it’s not looking good.”

Allen quickly responded with a comment which appeared to reference his comments about O'Sullivan, saying: “Must be that chip on your shoulder doing the damage.”

Murphy has divided opinion with his celebratory fist pumps during his first round match with David Gilbert, which he won 6-5.

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Stream the 2022 UK Championship and more top snooker action live and on-demand on discovery+.

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