Hearn happy to meet with Allen
Mark Allen was offered an olive branch by World Snooker chairman Barry Hearn as his hopes of winning the williamhill.com UK Championship took a blow.
Northern Irishman Allen has had to reach the final, in which he trails Judd Trump by 5-3 after the opening session, to ensure his performance at York's Barbican Centre has garnered similar attention to his criticism of Hearn.
On Monday the 25-year-old from Antrim called for Hearn to hand over responsibility for the running of the game, criticised the revamped format of the UK Championship and found himself facing the possibility of legal action from the veteran sports promoter who took offence at the personal nature of the remarks.
Hearn would rather he and Allen resolve their differences amicably as opposed to letting a rift widen, and hopes the pair can meet later this month. The sport's off-table driving force has transformed the snooker calendar in the space of two years, introducing a host of new tournaments and sending annual prize-money soaring from £3.5million to above £6million.
Allen strongly criticised the move to bring early-round matches at the UK Championship down from best of 17 frames to best of 11, claiming Hearn reneged on an earlier promise, and has since ironically gone through the draw to reach the first major final of his career.
The tone of Hearn's latest remarks indicates he will stand by the steps he has implemented to revive snooker and bring in a new young audience, warning of financial disaster if the sport goes stale.
Hearn, who is on holiday in Mauritius, said in a BBC Sport interview: "I see that Mark Allen's quite happy to have a meeting and I'm delighted to sit down. I wish we'd had it before if he felt so strongly. I'm surprised he kept it to himself.
"But the (World Snooker) AGM is on December 19 and I trust Mark Allen will come there and I'll be very happy to sit down with him, either collectively or privately, and explain our strategy going forward and hear his comments, because he made derogatory comments about me which I take personally but at the same time he didn't make any constructive points."
Trump, 22, who won the China Open in April and went on to finish runner-up at the World Championship in May, was 3-1 behind against Allen at the mid-session interval but breaks of 52, 62, 75 and 61 put him in front ahead of Sunday's resumption, when the first player to reach 10 frames will carry off the title and a cheque for £100,000.
Allen provided the highlight of the opening session with a sparkling total clearance of 141 in the third frame.
