Mark Allen advances to winner’s group of Championship League Snooker 2011
Mark Allen of Northern Ireland has stormed into the winner’s group of Championship League Snooker 2011. He defeated Stephen Lee of England, 3-0, in the best-of-five frames final match.
After the day-two group matches before the play-off, four players qualified for the semi-finals including Matthew Stevens, leading the group with 4 points, Stephen Lee, Mark King and Mark Allen.
Allen played three group matches on the second day with Mark Davis, Judd trump and Matthew Stevens. He whitewashed Mark Davis 3-0 firing a stunning 76 in the first frame. Impressive knocks of 77 and 68 in his match with Judd Trump gave him another victory
on day-two as he whitewashed Trump 3-0. He lost his third match of the day to Stevens 1-3 and with 3 points, he was placed at fourth spot in the group that took him to the play-offs.
Mark King, the 2011 Masters runner-up, played his two remaining group matches against Mark Davis and Judd Trump. He defeated Mark Davis 3-1 after facing a tough fight from him. He fired an impressive break of 97 to clinch his second match of day-two 3-1
against Trump. With 4 points, he was placed third in the table.
Stephen Lee led the group after the first day group matches with 4 points. He spotted second place in the group after day-two matches because of his defeat against Matthew Stevens, 0-3. Stevens played outstandingly well to clinch victory, hitting beautiful
55 and 84 clearances. Lee, though, won his second match of the day beating the Chinese, Liang Wenbo, 3-1. He knocked a couple of stunning breaks of 62 and 117 during the game.
Stevens crashed Allen 3-1 firing a smashing 128-break in the third frame. He also whitewashed Lee 3-0 in his day-two match to grab the first place in the group table.
In the play-off stage, Stephen Lee faced Mark King while Mark Allen and Matthew Stevens met each other. Lee stormed into the final beating King 3-1 in the semi-final with 74 and 77 clearances. On the other hand, Allen whitewashed Stevens 3-0 to play the
final against King. He did the same with Lee in the final with some awesome breaks of 63, 71 and 119 to paddle himself into the winner’s group.
So far, the winner’s group has got 6 winners from 6 groups. The 6 winners from 6 league-groups are Mark Selby (group 1), Mark Williams (group 2), Shaun Murphy (group 3), Ali Carter (group 4), Ryan Day (group 5) and Mark Allen (group 6). The 2004 World Amateur
champion, Mark Allen has fired the most century breaks in the league so far. He has achieved the feat on ten occasions until now.
The matches for group seven will be played on March 21-22. The group members of Championship League Snooker 2011 - group 7 are Stephen Lee, Mark King, Matthew Stevens, Liang Wenbo, Andrew Higginson, Martin Gould and Marco Fu.
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