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Number one seed Mark Allen suffered a shock 6-3 first-round defeat by England’s Joe O’Connor at the Players Championship in Wolverhampton.
The Northern Irishman is snooker’s form player this season having won three ranking titles, while O’Connor was the 16th and final qualifier for the event.
However the Leicester player, 27, moved 3-0 up helped by breaks of 63 and 64.
Runs of 85 and 91 saw Allen cut the margin to 4-2 but O’Connor replied with a 132 clearance before sealing victory.
Trailing 5-2, Allen kept his hopes alive by winning a scrappy eighth frame but world number 37 O’Connor closed out the match with a nerveless 45 clearance to secure a 6-3 victory after the Northern Irishman had looked odds-on to reduce the margin to only one frame.
Allen struggled with his positional play throughout the contest but the 2018 English amateur champion showed remarkable composure to clinch victory in frame nine after a poor safety shot by the UK champion when he led by 49 points to 19.
With Ronnie O’Sullivan, Mark Williams, Neil Robertson and John Higgins among those missing out on the event for this season’s most successful 16 players, O’Connor secured his place in Wolverhampton by reaching the quarter-finals at last week’s Welsh Open.
O’Connor played in his first ranking event final at the Scottish Open in December when he was beaten 9-2 by compatriot Gary Wilson.
In addition to winning the UK Championship in York, Allen successfully defended his Northern Ireland Open title in October and also won the World Grand Prix last month
In Monday’s other match in Wolverhampton, British Open champion Ryan Day earned a 6-2 win over this season’s Shoot Out winner Chris Wakelin.
The players were level at 2-2 at mid-session interval with Welshman Day producing a break of 88 in frame three only for the Englishman to reply with a run of 75 in the next.
However, Day won four straight frames to secure victory, helped by breaks of 102 and 53.
