World Snooker Championship 2021 - Mark Allen powers into second round, Stuart Bingham wins thriller

ByAlex Livie

Updated 20/04/2021 at 22:13 GMT

Mark Allen broke the back of his first-round meeting with Lyu Haotian in the first session, when he raced into a 7-2 lead. He never took his foot off the gas on Tuesday evening and is now on course for a potential meeting with Mark Selby in the second round of the World Championship at the Crucible.

Mark Allen cruised into the second round of the World Championship with a 10-2 win over Lyu Haotian.

The Pistol has described himself as having zero form this term, but he looked good in setting up a potential meeting with Mark Selby in round two.

For a player of his ability, Allen does not have a great record at the Crucible. His best result was a semi-final appearance in 2009, and he arrived in Sheffield with little form to his name.

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But he produced a dominant display to topple Lyu. The damage was done in the opening session, with breaks of 139, 102 and 106 securing a 7-2 advantage.

After breaking the back of the match in the morning session, Allen kept his foot on the jugular to advance with ease.

Lyu’s only hope was a rapid start, but he lost a scrappy opening frame of the second session after wriggling a tough yellow in the jaws when poised to counter.

At six frames adrift, Lyu went into attack mode. He knocked in a superb red at the start of the 11th and looked in a mood to fight, but missed a black off its spot and a counter of 64 from Allen moved the Northern Irishman to within one frame of victory.

Victory was swift in coming, as Allen seized on a mistake from Lyu to wrap up the win - the most dominant of the completed first-round ties to date.

‘You’re joking?’ – Bingham dismayed as match paused with one frame left

Stuart Bingham progressed to round two with a thrilling 10-9 win over Ding Junhui.

The pair were forced to come back to play the final frame of their match in the evening, after they were forced off at 9-9 due to the session overrunning.

Bingham had the first chance after Ding went in-off, but he missed a simple red to hand his Chinese opponent the table.

Given the nature of the match, it was never likely one of them would make a clean kill and it proved the case as Ding broke down on 45.

Bingham looked in pieces when he missed the simple red, but returned to the table and crafted a brilliant 70 under huge pressure to book his place in round two.

Barry Hawkins is in command of his first-round clash with Matthew Selt.

It wasn’t a vintage display from Hawkins, as Selt squandered a host of chances, but he was able to open up a sizeable lead.

Selt - who trailed 5-1 at one stage - took the final frame of the evening to cut the deficit to 6-3 ahead of the second session.

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