Mark Allen’s Players Championship title defence came to a screeching halt at the first hurdle following an opening-round defeat to Kyren Wilson at the Telford International Centre.
The Antrim cueman was handed a tricky draw in the First Round against the reigning World Champion and Northern Ireland Open holder and, despite Allen pegging the World No.2 back at three frames apiece, Wilson hit back by rattling off three straight frames to win 6-3 set up a Second Round clash with Mark Williams.
Allen was on the back foot straight away, with Wilson registering an opening 87 to take the first frame, but the World No.8 responded with a break of 125 to level it up at 1-1.
The Northamptonshire native then seared into a 3-1 advantage before Allen (39) again evened the scores, taking the next two frames to leave the pair tied on three frames apiece.
However, that was as finely poised as it got as breaks of 66, 74 and 53 proved enough for 33-year-old Wilson to claim the victory and eliminate Allen from contention.
The Northern Irishman would have fancied his chances against World No.5 Williams – who triumphed over China’s Ding Junhui 6-2 – given he defeated the Welshman 6-3 in the First Round on his way to Players Championship glory in 2024.
From there, Allen conquered Mark Wilson in the Second Round and Ali Carter in the Semi-Finals before overcoming Zhang Anda 10-8 in the decider, but there will be no back-to-back success for him in the tournament in 2025.