Mark Allen drawn to face Reanne Evans in the British Open

Mark Allen has been drawn to face his ex partner Reanne Evans in the opening round of the 2021 British Open in Leicester.

One of the stand-out ties in the season’s second ranking event will see world number 12 Allen take on 12-time Women’s World Champion Evans just months after the pair were involved in a bitter dispute during the World Championship.

It will be their first competitive meeting since Evans was handed a two-year wildcard to join the professional circuit as of this season.

Allen and Evans were in a relationship between 2005 and 2008, with their daughter Lauren born in 2006.

Prior to his First Round match at the World Championship in April, Allen requested for Evans to be removed from the practice room at The Crucible whilst she was preparing for a punditry stint for the BBC.

Following discussions between World Snooker and the broadcaster, Evans was asked to leave by tournament officials and reluctantly agreed.

The WPBSA confirmed they had received a complaint about the incident and investigated the circumstances.

Allen and Evans had been involved in a dispute over maintenance payments for their daughter, with Allen also going through divorce proceedings with estranged wife Kyla McGuigan – with whom he has another young daughter.

The former Masters Champion has racked up career earnings of around £3.3 million, but recently declared himself bankrupt and vowed to take a break from the sport for personal reasons.

The British Open returns as a ranking event from August 16-22, 17 years after it was last held in Brighton.

The random draw for the event was made on Wednesday and also paired Mark Selby and Shaun Murphy in a repeat of May’s World Championship final.

All matches up to and including the Last 16 are best of five frames, with Quarter-Final and Semi-Finals best of seven and the final best of 11 frames.

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British Open 2021 Draw

First Round

Iulian Boiko v Anthony Hamilton
Robbie Williams v Akani Songsermsawad
Anthony McGill v Zhao Jianbo
Ashley Hugill v Kyren Wilson
David Grace v Ng On Yee
Ian Burns v Michael White
Lu Ning v Igor Figueiredo
Matthew Selt v Thepchaiya Un-Nooh
Lee Walker v Sanderson Lam
Barry Hawkins v Luca Brecel
Elliot Slessor v Peter Devlin
Stuart Carrington v Liam Highfield
Steven Hallworth v Joe O’Connor
Dominic Dale v Xiao Guodong
Li Hang v Sam Craigie
Lukas Kleckers v Yan Bingtao
Zak Surety v Ken Doherty
Zhou Yuelong v Tom Ford
James Cahill v Ricky Walden
Xu Si v Fan Zhengyi
Gerard Greene v Martin O’Donnell
Zhang Anda v John Astley
Liang Wenbo v Simon Lichtenberg
Wu Yize v Fraser Patrick
Fergal O’Brien v Gary Wilson
Andy Hicks v Chang Bingyu
Michael Holt v Mark Davis
Jimmy Robertson v Mark Joyce
Dean Young v Scott Donaldson
Jamie Jones v Hossein Vafaei
Duane Jones v Nigel Bond
Zhao Xintong v Cao Yupeng
Mark J Williams v Tian Pengfei
Jamie Wilson v Mark King
Joe Perry v Ben Hancorn
Alexander Ursenbacher v John Higgins
Jamie Clarke v Pang Junxu
Michael Georgiou v Soheil Vahedi
Yuan Sijun v Louis Heathcote
Zhang Jiankang v Peter Lines
Mitchell Mann v Judd Trump
Michael Judge v Andrew Pagett
Ross Muir v Ryan Day
Ben Woollaston v Hammad Miah
Mark Selby v Shaun Murphy
Stuart Bingham v Robert Milkins
Mark Allen v Reanne Evans
Sean Maddocks v Noppon Saengkham
Ashley Carty v Bai Langning
Andrew Higginson v Jordan Brown
Rory McLeod v Kurt Maflin
Alfie Burden v Allan Taylor
Aaron Hill v Jimmy White
David Gilbert v Matthew Stevens
Si Jiahui v Oliver Lines
Stephen Maguire v Jackson Page
Graeme Dott v Martin Gould
Dylan Emery v Gao Yang
Chen Zifan v Farakh Ajaib
David Lilley v Craig Steadman
Chris Wakelin v Stephen Hendry
Ali Carter v Lei Peifan
Jack Lisowski v Barry Pinches
Jak Jones v Lyu Haotian