World Snooker 2016: Mitchell Mann 'doubted technique' during Mark Allen loss

Mitchell Mann was making his World Championship debut at the Crucible in Sheffield

Crucible debutant Mitchell Mann admitted his confidence drained rapidly during his 10-3 World Championship defeat by Mark Allen.

Mann, the world number 74, showed few signs of nerves as he made breaks of 69 and 77 in the first three frames.

But after mistakes crept into the 24-year-old's game, the more experienced Allen capitalised.

Mann said: "Once I started missing a few I just doubted my technique and that's what killed me really."

Having come through three rounds in qualifying at Ponds Forge, Mann was the only player in the 32-strong field never to have experienced the tense atmosphere of the Crucible before.

He took a 2-1 lead over Allen, a World Championship semi-finalist in 2009, but then lost five of the next six frames to trail 6-3 overnight.

Allen, the world number seven, was in no mood to let up when play resumed on Wednesday morning, winning four successive frames to clinch a routine victory.

Birmingham-born Mann said: "I just seemed to lose a lot of faith in my cueing. I didn't really want to take many balls on and that just shook my confidence.

"I don't think I'll take much time off from here. I think I'm just going to iron out the demons in my technique."

Mann said the biggest lesson he had learned from his first appearance was how the intimate nature of the Crucible lays bare every mistake.

"It's very different to the qualifiers, there's no hiding out there," he said. "When your confidence gets as low as it was for me, it's not really the place to play.

"I think I need to work really hard at my game. My technique - and my confidence in it - is killing me at the minute."

Sign up to My Sport to follow snooker news and reports on the BBC app.