John Higgins feels jinxed after making first round Masters exit

The 34-year-old Scot, who is provisional world No.1 and won the Masters in 1999 and 2006, slipped 3-1 behind at the mid-session interval in the best-of-11 contest.

Allen made numerous errors but Higgins made even more as the Northern Irishman held on for a 6-3 triumph.

"I never seem to play well here," Higgins said. "I can only liken it to a golfer who doesn't play well on certain courses. I've lost so many first-round matches but it's the manner in which I've lost them.

"Take nothing away from Mark, if you look at the points total he had about a 1,000 and I had a 100. I was lucky to get three frames."

Allen, 23, will now face Mark Selby, who beat China's Ding Junhui 6-1 on Sunday, in the last eight.

"It was definitely a good win and will help my confidence," he admitted.

"John didn't play well but you need the likes of Ronnie (O'Sullivan) or John to be off colour."

Meanwhile, Welshman Ryan Day enjoyed a comprehensive 6-0 victory over Joe Perry to reach his first quarter-final in four attempts in the competition.

Day will meet Stephen Maguire tomorrow after a comfortable win against an out-of-sorts Perry.

Day started steadily to take the first frame 82-24 and a 67 helped him win the second.

The one-way traffic continued despite Perry being first up in the third and he wasted another opportunity in the next frame, failing to clear up after Day slipped up on 53. However, the Wisbech potter missed a simple yellow to let his opponent back in and go 4-0 down.

The fifth was one-sided before Day wrapped up the win on the colours after another missed opportunity by Perry on the last red.

"It couldn't have been much better," said Day afterwards. "Joe was struggling and it's not easy when that happens in a big arena like this, you can feel embarrassed. I kept him under pressure and put enough points on the board to win."