Name                                    :               Mark Allen

Highest Ranking               :               6 (March – May and June 2013)

Current Ranking               :               10 (After 2017 Grand Prix)

Highest Break                    :               147 (2016 UK Championship)

Century Breaks                 :               308

Mark Allen (born 22 February 1986) is a Northern Irish professional snooker player. He won the World Amateur Championship in 2004. The following year he entered the Main Tour and took only three seasons to reach the elite top 16. As a prolific break-builder, Allen has compiled more than 300 century breaks in professional competition.

Allen has reached five ranking semi-finals: the 2007 Northern Ireland Trophy, the 2008 Bahrain Championship, the 2009 World Championship, the 2010 China Open and the 2010 UK Championship. In June 2009, he won his first professional title, the invitational Jiangsu Classic in China. He reached his first ranking event final at the 2011 UK Championship.

A left-hander, Allen's highest break is 147 the maximum points a snooker player can score, which he has achieved in the 2016 UK Championship.

Early career

He began his professional career by playing Challenge Tour in 2003, at the time the second-level professional tour. Before entering Main Tour for the 2005/2006 season, Allen won the European Championship and the IBSF World Championship, plus Northern Ireland Championship at under-14, under-16, and under-19 levels. His early career was aided by National Lottery funding.

 By chance, an invitational Northern Ireland Trophy was staged shortly after Allen turned professional. As a local player, he was invited and made an immediate impact, defeating Steve Davis and John Higgins to reach the quarter-finals, before losing to Stephen Hendry. In his first year on the tour, he reached the last 32 of the 2005 UK Championship and the 2006 Welsh Open, losing 2–5 to the then World Champion Shaun Murphy after leading 2–0. He also got to the final qualifying round of the 2006 World Championship, losing 7–10 to Andy Hicks, after leading 7–4.

In March 2007 he qualified for the World Championship for the first time, winning 3 matches culminating in a 10–4 win over Robert Milkins. In April 2007 he beat former world champion Ken Doherty 10–7 in the first round held at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, but lost to Matthew Stevens 9–13 in the second round. This was his first run to the last 16 of a tournament and helped him into the top 32 of the rankings (at no. 29).

In the 2007 Northern Ireland Trophy he gave his home supporters plenty to shout about, by beating Graeme Dott 5–3 and Ryan Day 5–3 to reach his first ever quarter-final. In it he defeated Gerard Greene 5–3 to reach the semi-final, where he lost 3–6 to Fergal O'Brien. In the following UK Championship he defeated Stephen Hendry in the last 32. He opened his last-16 match against Mark Williams with two centuries in the first three frames, building a 5–1 lead, but Williams fought back and he lost 5–9. He then reached the quarter-finals in the 2008 China Open before losing to Shaun Murphy. At the 2008 World Championship he led Stephen Hendry 6–3, 7–4 and 9–7 before losing 9–10. However, first-round defeats for all his rivals for a top 16 place ensured that he finished the season at number 16 in the rankings.

2015/2016 season

Allen reached the semi-finals of the Shanghai Masters with a 5–1 victory over Mark Davis, but was beaten 6–1 by Kyren Wilson. In the quarter-finals of the International Championship he compiled a 118 break to send the match into a deciding frame, but Thepchaiya Un-Nooh won it. Allen swept to the final of the Bulgarian Open by whitewashing Mark Williams 4–0 and did not drop a frame against Ryan Day either as he took home the title, his first in 15 months. The win qualified Allen for the Champion of Championsand he knocked out Barry Hawkins, Stephen Maguire and Wilson to reach another final, where he lost 10–5 to Neil Robertson. Robertson was also the victor when the pair met in the semi-finals of the Welsh Open, this time 6–4.

Allen came from 4–2 down against Shaun Murphy to win 6–4 and reach his first ranking event final of the season at the PTC Finals. He was 3–1 down to Ricky Walden, but a crucial run of six successive frames would be key as Allen won 10–6. He became the first Northern Irishman to win a ranking event in the UK since Dennis Taylor won the world title in 1985. Allen lost the opening seven frames against Kyren Wilson in the second round of the World Championship and was also 11–5 behind. He closed the gap to 11–9, but had left himself too much to do as he lost 13–9. Allen called the season a waste as he had not become the world champion.