Reanne Evans snubs ex-partner Mark Allen before British Open grudge match

• Evans refuses pre-match handshake with Allen
• Allen eventually wins tightly fought first-round encounter 3-2

Any notion that the most extraordinary grudge match in snooker history would fail to live up to the pre-game billing was dispelled before a ball had even been potted. Snooker has had its fair share of eagerly anticipated showdowns in recent times but none have had a backdrop and subplot quite like this one. In the end, the match delivered just as much as the drama did.

How Barry Hearn, snooker’s grand supremo and lover of any off-baize action that generates publicity, must have grinned when Reanne Evans refused Mark Allen’s offer of a handshake before the break-off in their first-round match at the British Open in Leicester. There is, of course, way more to this story than ranking points, prize money or head-to-head meetings on the table but even that lit the touch-paper in a way nobody could have imagined.

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