2016 Masters (Day One) - Allen knocks out defending champion

First day here at the lovely Ally Pally for the Dafabet Masters and what do you know? We've already been acquainted with the first shock of the tournament carefully cooked and served by Mark Allen who beat the reigning Masters champion, Shaun Murphy 6-4 to grab a comfortable seat in the quarter-finals.

Allen's ambition to avenge last year's Masters semi-final was something that we spotted right away as the Northern-Ireland lad took the opening frame with a top break of 50, while early signs of Murphy missing long shots could be detected.

Still, the next frame brought more balance to the match as "The Magician" used a 68 break, to which his opponent answered with a brilliantly cued 137 to restore his leadership. This was the first century break of the tournament, which by the way makes Allen a serious contestant for the highest break, plus the player's 266 century break.

The mid-session interval arrived in no time with the scoreboard showing a perfect 2-2 scoreline thanks to Shaun's inspired 65 break from frame four.

But when the players returned 15 minutes later, carefully supervised by the referee Olivier Martel, all hell broke loose.

Allen put his nose back in front with a 91 break to which Murphy tried to counterbalance but failed in the worst possible way: he missed a shot three times on a row, thus forfeiting the frame. It was 4-2!

And like that wasn't enough "The Pistol" carefully shot another frame with a great 104 to go just one away from victory. Could Murphy recover from this?

The answer was no, but he surely did try his best. Breaks of 67 and 100 were bringing the Englishman very close to draw level and force the decider, but a series of misses and bad shots during frame 10 proved quite costly, in the end the stronger player (aka. Mark Allen) getting over the finish-line. 

So with one shock in the bag, we can't but wait to see what happens next. 

World reigning champion Stuart Bingham and Ding Junhui are playing today from 7pm (UK time), so be sure to follow the lads in action!