World number 47 Sam Craigie scored a shock 6-2 win over Zhao Xintong in York as the defending champion fell at the first hurdle of the Cazoo UK Championship.
China’s Zhao beat Luca Brecel in the final at the Barbican last year, and soon afterwards won his second ranking title at the German Masters. But his form has been patchy since then – the 25-year-old has not been beyond the quarter-finals of a knockout ranking event since February.
Craigie won two qualifying matches to book his place in York, and today scored one of the best wins of his career in front of a sell-out crowd. The 29-year-old from Newcastle-Upon-Tyne is through to the last 16 of a ranking event for the sixth time in his career, and first time in a Triple Crown event.
A break of 83 in the opening frame settled Craigie into the match. Zhao took the next two, but Craigie then fired runs of 78 and 69 to go 3-2 ahead. World number eight Zhao had chances in the sixth but didn’t capitalise, and his opponent made a 36 clearance to double his lead.
Frame seven came down to a battle on the brown, and Zhao went in-off when attempting safety, which gifted the frame to Craigie. And another error from Zhao in the eighth, missing a red to a top corner, proved his final mistake as Craigie finished in style with a 104. He now faces Ryan Day or Jimmy White.
On the other table, close friends Mark Allen and Jordan Brown embraced at the start and end of their first round content, but it was world number nine Allen who remains in York thanks to a 6-4 success. This was the first time that the Northern Irish duo had met in a professional tournament.
A warm embrace at the end of the match
Allen has been the player of the season so far having won the Northern Ireland Open as well as reaching the final of the Cazoo British Open, and he is clearly one of the favourites for the record £250,000 top prize over the coming nine days in York. His next opponent is Kyren Wilson or Matthew Selt.
The standard today was superb with two centuries and six more breaks over 50 in the ten frames. Brown made an 84 in taking an early 2-0 lead, but Allen recovered to win five of the next six frames with top runs of 68, 105, 113, 63 and 55. He could have wrapped up the result in frame nine but, after potting the last red, he missed a tricky brown to a centre pocket when he trailed by 29 points.
Brown closed to 5-4 then had a chance to set up a decider, but after making 21, a routine pink to a centre pocket hit the far jaw. Allen dominated the rest of the frame to seal his progress.
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