World Snooker Championship 2024: Mark Allen aiming for maiden world title and world number one double

Mark Allen begins his campaign for a maiden world championship title on Tuesday afternoon at the Crucible Theatre when he faces qualifier Robbie Williams in round one.

World number three Allen is better equipped than ever before to land the sport's blue riband event. The Northern Irishman continues to enjoy the best spell of his career over the past 18 months having scooped five ranking event titles and the invitational Champion of Champions accolade within that period. Testament to his consistency, Allen is provisionally in line to claim the world number one spot for the first time in his career at the end of the season.

For a player of Allen's class, he possesses an ordinary record in snooker's biggest event. The 38-year-old has appeared in Sheffield every year since his debut in 2007, but has yet to reach the showpiece, with two semi-final finishes as his top returns. However, the second of those last four berths came only last year when he bowed out to four-time winner Mark Selby 17-15 after rallying from 16-10 down.

Over the past few days in and around Sheffield, Allen has been keeping himself busy off the baize, helping conduct the draw on Thursday morning and commentating on several matches for the BBC. Punditry duties aside, though, when asked if he watches future opponents on the television, Allen gave a simple response when speaking to the Belfast News Letter.

He explained: “This is such a bad answer but I don’t, I genuinely don't.

"I concentrate on my own game, do my own thing in between games and try not to get involved in the stress of it.

"If you start watching all the other stuff...you start to get dragged into the battles.

"I don't even watch it from that point of view because you know all the guys so well as we travel the world together, so watching a player on one given today isn't going to change your mind on how you approach the game the next day.

"Unless there's a friend in the tournament or it's a world final, I'll watch because it's the pinnacle of the sport.

"In general, I try not to watch too much because it annoys me too much when I've been beaten and there's bad memories.”

Questioned about his feelings on his opening round assignment against world number 45 Robbie Williams, Allen was complimentary about his opponent: "Robbie is someone I’m a big admirer of actually and the way he came through that qualifier the other day from 9-8 down, he’s a class player but they’re all good players at the end of the day.”