November 6, 2020
(Reuters) – Mark Allen has said Ronnie O’Sullivan tries to “bully people” after the world champion accused him of gamesmanship in the final frame of Thursday’s Champion of Champions quarter-final.
Northern Irishman Allen won the ill-tempered contest at Milton Keynes 6-3 after the players clashed, with O’Sullivan saying his opponent was moving in his eyeline to throw him off his game.
Referee Marcel Eckardt eventually restored order and O’Sullivan missed a straightforward red when the action resumed, allowing Allen to close out the win and set up a semi-final with top-ranked Judd Trump.
“I don’t know what he was on about, he was saying I was moving in his eyeline, I was standing in front of the shots, I was moving in my seat,” Allen told reporters.
“Marcel even said, ‘Mark, I know you’re not doing anything but let it go’. I’m not going to let it go if he’s going to make up rubbish.
“Ronnie just tries to bully people out there and I wasn’t having any of it.”
O’Sullivan said there were no hard feelings following his defeat.
“Maybe I read a bit too much into it but it just seemed a little bit like stuff you do down the snooker club when you’re an amateur and trying to get into your opponent’s head or put him off,” O’Sullivan told ITV4.
“There’s no point letting it go and he carries on doing it, so I thought, ‘let’s get it out of the way’ … Mark played fantastic and deserved his victory but sometimes you’ve got to say something and get it out of the way.”
(Reporting by Shrivathsa Sridhar in Bengaluru; Editing by Peter Rutherford)
