Mark Allen battles past Zhang Anda in tense final to win Players Championship

Mark Allen held off a determined challenge from Zhang Anda to win the Players Championship – and move closer to his long-held ambition to be world No 1.

In a tense, at times scrappy match in Telford, Zhang, who is having a great season, pushed the Northern Irishman all the way but Allen held his nerve to complete a 10-8 win at 15 minutes before midnight on Sunday night.

Allen is the world No 3 but is closing in on the two players ranked above him, Ronnie O’Sullivan and Judd Trump. As those two contested the world championship final two years ago, their points from that event will come off at the end of the season.

Allen won three ranking titles last season, including the UK Championship, and has now added two more this season – plus the Champion of Champions, a prestigious non-ranking tournament – to bring his career total to 11, as attention turns to the world championship at the Crucible in April.

A relieved Allen said: “It was tough all day, I think I dragged Zhang down with me. My safety kept me in the match, but it wasn’t a lot of fun to be involved in.

“I’ve won five [ranking titles] in the last couple of years. I want to keep doing that and if I can get to 20 or 30 at the end of my career I would have done all right. But my career will be a disappointment if I don’t win the world championship.”

Zhang, who defeated John Higgins and Mark Selby to reach the final, won the first three frames but Allen battled back to level at 4-4 going into the evening session.

The Northern Irishman won three frames in a row to lead 8-6 but the match was becoming increasingly nervy and scrappy. Zhang appeared to have lost his game in the next frame but Allen missed a couple of chances to go three up. The Chinese took the frame but his opponent hit back in the next to lead 9-7.

The next took 37 minutes and ended when Zhang potted a pink on a cushion to close to within a frame, but Allen held his nerve in the next with breaks of 40 and 24.

Zhang has enjoyed an amazing season. Long considered a journeyman, the 32-year-old has spent most of his career ranked in the 60s and 70s and has twice fallen off the tour. But this season has seen an incredible turnaround in his fortunes – he was runner-up to Judd Trump in the English Open and then won the International Championship in China, results which lifted him to No 12 in the world rankings.

He has guaranteed a top seeding in the Tour Championship, for the top 12 on the one-year ranking list, at the start of April, and has also ensured he will not have to qualify for the world championship three weeks later.