Snooker world No. 3 Mark Allen launched a blistering defence of his British Open rant, in which he fumed that the table he played on should be “burned”, after Shaun Murphy publicly disagreed with the comments.
Allen has since apologised to ITV host Rob Walker for the irate interview, but seemingly was unimpressed with Murphy’s response in which he defended the tables and new fitters hired by the World Snooker Tour this season.
In Cheltenham, Allen said that the conditions inside the Centaur were “absolutely embarrassing” and that the new table fitters were “clearly not up to it” before reaching the semi-finals.
But Murphy, who is on the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association Players’ Board, was among those defending the tournament organisers and table fitters.
“I must defend the staff,” Murphy said. “I think some of the criticism from fellow professionals has been nothing short of rude and amateurish.
“There’s a real misconception about playing conditions – people either refer to them as good or bad. The truth of the matter is they’re either difficult or more difficult. It’s about time players understood that. They’re either difficult or get more difficult with the weather and humidity.”
Now Allen, who went on to make a 147 maximum break on the very same table he slammed, has hit back at Murphy’s stance.
Taking to X (formerly known as Twitter) he wrote: “Anyone taking @Magician147 (Murphy) opinions seriously I seriously question their judgement or quite possibly their sanity, not gonna lie. Anyway, maybe I’ll take 3 cues to my next match (laughing emojis).”
When told by a fan that Murphy’s opinions are “perfectly valid” considering he has reached four World Championship finals, Allen replied: “You misspelled irrelevant.”
It is not the first time that Allen and Murphy have rowed on social media, despite being good friends at the snooker table. Their latest back-and-forth has put the spotlight back on those in charge of the playing conditions.
Murphy later did concede that the British Open tables were “bad” and “difficult” but doubled down on his view that the disparaging comments were “extremely distasteful”.
“The staff, there’s been a lot of talk that there are new fitters, and a lot of that is true,” he said on his OneFourSeven Podcast. “Their job is to take a table off a lorry on a pallet, and they put the table together. Their job is to put that table together, have it installed, and get them as level as possible.
“That’s what is in their control. How a table plays, whether it’s heavy or not, whether we can spin the ball properly – that’s nothing to do with them.
“Some of the comments and criticisms about the staff, I find extremely distasteful. I thought they were bang out of order. These guys do an immense job.”
