World Snooker Championship: ‘Shocking’ semi-final miss still haunts Mark Allen

Allen was praised for his quick reaction to the semi-final defeat as he paid tribute to 22-year-old winner Yage when he admitted “I got my chance and blew it, so there’s no point in losing badly”.

He hopes he has “many more chances to do it (win the world title) and not be remembered for one shot”, but thinks last year’s Masters has similarities to snooker’s Triple Crown and Rory McIlroy’s odyssey to finally complete golf’s career Grand Slam.

Allen would welcome the opportunity to have “a chat with Rory to see how he felt and what he did differently” as he tried to reach his own supervisory goals.

While his missing black may have been one of the enduring moments of the semi-final, there was another moment before the match Frame 14 lasted over 100 minutes.

Allen held on to the lead after 55 minutes without the ball, covering the black on the right corner pocket and turning eight reds.

With Allen reluctant to re-rack, the situation was only resolved when he pocketed black for a foul with Wu to win the frame, a situation he felt was “poorly handled” from several angles.

“You’re not really worried about what people think, but just thinking about winning the frame,” reflects Allen.

“I think it was handled poorly at the time with crowd involvement and the commentary team didn’t help.

“Introspection, I probably would have taken the re-rack, but I felt I was dominating and had the patience to stay in there and win the frame, but it didn’t turn out that way.”