Mark Allen says he is not OK after 10 weeks in mental health clinic

The defeat in Belfast

Mark Allen lost 4-2 to his close friend Jordan Brown in the first round of the Northern Ireland Open at the Waterfront Hall in Belfast on Tuesday, 20 October 2026. It was the 40-year-old's first match since his World Championship semi-final defeat to Wu Yize, and he had stayed away from the tour in the months in between. According to the Irish Examiner, Allen has won 12 ranking titles and reached the World Championship semi-finals three times. Straight after the match he gave an emotional interview to TNT Sports, telling the broadcaster that he felt really overwhelmed and was in a bad place. He said he would not have come back had he not been facing Brown, and that playing his friend in the venue where his career took off in 2005 felt like a fitting way to sign out.

A retirement hint and a statement

Allen made clear in the TNT interview that he was seriously weighing whether to quit the sport.

I just don't see a future of us sticking in it, if I'm honest.

Asked by BBC Sport NI whether he was considering drawing the curtain on his career, he answered 'Yeah'. He told the BBC that retiring was something he had been contemplating for a while. On Wednesday, 21 October 2026, Allen posted a long statement on X in which he said that everything he had said in the interview was true and that he was doing his best to turn things round.

Everything I said in that interview was true. However, rest assured I'm doing my best to turn things round.

In the statement he wrote that he had spent 10 weeks in a mental health clinic and left it so he could play in Belfast, a decision he said he owed to his family and in particular his daughter. He also said he owed it to fans who had followed him through 21 years on tour, and to World Snooker, naming Simon Brownell and Neil Tomkins and saying that Brownell had visited him at the clinic. Allen described himself as 'not OK' but said he was 'OK in that itself', adding that the period before the interview had been far worse than what viewers saw.

Support and next steps

Brown told the Irish Examiner that it was great to see Allen back playing, that he had come through a tough time away from the table, and that everyone was behind him. TNT Sports interviewer Rachel Casey consoled Allen on air, and she told him:

there is always a road back, and you have so many friends.

World Snooker Tour and the WPBSA have both offered support and said they want to keep helping him in any way they can. Allen said he would continue his treatments and then see what lay ahead, and he wished the rest of the Northern Ireland Open every success.