World No. 1 Judd Trump will have a chance to win a fifth Northern Ireland Open title after defeating home favourite Mark Allen 6-3 in an energy-sapping semi-final night at the Waterfront Hall.
The match was often an intense tactical safety battle, but Trump managed to loosen the shackles in the home stretch to get over the line.
Trump will play fellow Englishman Jack Lisowski in a match that the players, fans and everyone involved will hope to be more fluid than the stop-start event tonight.
Match Summary
Frames 1-4
With an early break of 43 giving him a cushion, and Trump not starting as sharply as he’d have liked, it looked like Allen was in control of the opening frame until Trump produced a superb snooker that forced a foul from the Antrim man. From there, Trump took the frame – and potentially a psychological blow, given how it had looked at the start.
Allen put together an early break of 36 in the second frame, but Trump responded by laying another clever snooker, sparking a prolonged safety exchange. After 46 tense minutes, it was Allen who finally prevailed, taking the frame to level the match.
Trump lifted the match out of the defensive doldrums with a swift break of 73 to reclaim the lead. But a missed pink in the following frame opened the door for Allen, who stepped in with a brisk 68 to level the match heading into the interval.
Frames 5-9
Allen picked up where he left off, easing through the fifth frame with a superb clearance of 135, his seventh century of the tournament, to move back into the lead.
Trump looked far from his best, but he dug deep to take the sixth frame, after a tricky snooker earned some vital extra points for the Englishman.
After two spirit-sapping re-racks, Trump seized the momentum with a much-needed break of 82, taking the frame and the lead in the match once again.
Winning the previous frame must have given him the adrenaline boost required as Trump raced to a 44 break in the eighth frame, before the game once again became a tactical face-off. After 30 minutes, Trump came out on top to stand one frame from a sixth final in Belfast.
The match was settled with Trump flowing, producing a break of 66, and after an often turgid encounter, the home hero Allen was left disappointed, but with the knowledge that he had been edged out by the more fluent player on the night.
Trump will play World No. 29 Jack Lisowski in the best of 17 frames final tomorrow, starting at 1pm BST.
