Scots snooker veteran John Higgins has been tipped for the Welsh Open title after breezing into the quarter-finals. And he feels that luck has been on his side.
The Wizard of Wishaw hasn’t dropped a frame in any of his three matches so far, and saw off Chinese opponent Yuan Sijun comfortably – despite a tricky first frame where his opponent gifted the 49-year-old a route back into the match. And he didn’t look back, finishing with a sublime century with his flawless showings so far catching the eye of BBC pundit and former world champion Ken Doherty – who believes Higgins has finally found what he’s been searching in his game for.
Doherty said: “It was a wonderful way finish, 1,015 centuries, what a career. I’d have been happy with 15! I thought he played really well, he got better and got stronger. He looks very composed, very relaxed and very self-assured around the table. He’s obviously searching for something, he’s not been on the winner’s rostrum for some time. He’s seen all these other guys picking up trophies and he’s been left behind a little bit.
“He needs something to prove to himself that he can be a winner again. And the way he’s played, he’s played some of the best snooker we’ve seen all week, he’ll be very difficult to stop. You are just searching for that one bit of inspiration, and a good run in this competition for John Higgins could have him back competing for every title once again.”
A typically humble Higgins meanwhile said he felt he got lucky during the match but is relishing playing some top-quality snooker at one of his favourite venues. He said: “I’m delighted. I’ve not really had to play a hard shot or anything because my positioning has been pretty good and the balls have been falling nicely for me, and that’s half the battle.
“I’m delighted to have not dropped a frame so far. It’s obviously going to change. The first frame was very important, he missed a bad red, I think that he was frightened to get a cannon and just took his eye right off the pot. From then I got back into it, but I was lucky. I had a couple of massive slices of luck.
“I butchered a safety shot on the third frame, fluked one and did a frame-winning break. In these best of sevens, if you can get big slices of luck then that’s massive. Yuan will be walking away from that game thinking that he’s not really done much wrong. That’s just the nature of the game, you sit there driving home sometimes thinking you’ve not had much of a chance.
“You relish these moments even more now. I was going out there and it was a packed crowd and a big match. I really enjoyed it. I love the Welsh tournaments.”