HAIKOU World Open Final, Sunday March 4 2012

Mark Allen 10 – 1 Stephen Lee

MARK Allen was crowned Haikou World Open champion and secured his first world ranking title in emphatic style thrashing Stephen Lee 10-1.

Northern Ireland’s Allen who made a stunning comeback to beat Mark Selby in Saturday’s semi-final, proved too strong on the day against an off-colour Lee.

Allen, who has caused controversy this week over comments he made on Twitter about his thoughts of China, might just have to think again his feelings as Hainan will be the venue where he won his first title.

In a race to ten frames, Allen did the damage early as breaks of 104, 50, 127 and 53 raced him into a commanding 5-0 lead before a run of 67 finally got Lee on the scoreboard in the sixth frame.

But Allen refused to give Stephen any chances of a making what would have been a tremendous comeback winning the next frame to restore a significant five-frame lead.

Any hopes of a Lee comeback were put to the sword by the Northern Ireland potter when he got a valuable snooker trailing 67-31 with just 35 points remaining on the table. Lee could not escape the snooker and the white went in-off to give Allen a free ball in addition. He then cleared the table to take a 7-1 lead.

Allen then hit his third century break of the match of 123 in the final frame of the first session to take an incredible 8-1 lead.

After winning the tenth frame, Allen then sealed the match and his first title in the perfect way hammering another century break before lifting the World Open trophy.

Incidentally despite not winning the final, Stephen Lee did scoop the highest break of the competition prize with his 138 against Neil Robertson in the last 16 round.