Players Championship snooker 2023: Joe O’Connor stuns Mark Allen to reach quarter-finals

Joe O’Connor knocked out top seed Mark Allen in a huge upset on the opening day of the Players Championship in Wolverhampton. The 27-year-old showed impressive composure to keep Allen at distance after opening up a 3-0 lead, eventually coming home 6-3.

Ad With Ronnie O’Sullivan and Neil Robertson among those failing to qualify for the showpiece tournament at Aldersley Leisure Village, Allen headed into the event among a small group of favourites also containing Judd Trump and Mark Selby. Welsh OpenAllen tumbles out of Welsh Open after below-par display in 5-1 loss to Milkins17/02/2023 AT 22:54 But he was left to rue poor positional play and failure to convert mini breaks into one-visit frames as O’Connor repeatedly edged the scrappier frames to book his spot in the quarter-finals.