Higgins Wins Group Three
John Higgins beat Kyren Wilson 3-0 in the Group Three final to advance to Winners’ Group of BetVictor Championship League Snooker.
Higgins topped his group for the third time this week. He then fell 2-0 down to Tom Ford in the semi-finals, but took the last three frames of the match to make it through to his second group final of the week.
Wilson finished second in the group phase and then defeated Zhao Xintong 3-1 in his play-off semi-final.
Wilson had chances in all three frames of the final, but it was Higgins who prevailed each time, with a 73 break in the third clinching victory for the Scot.
“I’m really happy to get through,” said Higgins. “I have managed to get through Group One and Group Two but I was lucky because Tom was one ball away from knocking me out at the semi-final. I got a chance to live another day and played pretty well in the final.
“I’m happy to win and I showed a bit of bottle to clear up and win the group. I felt really good all week, I have been hitting the ball really well so onwards and upwards.”
Mark Selby will join Zhao, Ford and Wilson in Group Four having finished fifth in Group Three, where they will be joined by newcomers Judd Trump, Yan Bingtao and Jack Lisowski. Scott Donaldson and Matthew Selt have been eliminated from the event having finished sixth and seventh respectively in the group.
Group Four begins on Monday, February 8. Group fixtures and results can be found at http://www.championshipleaguesnooker.co.uk/
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PLAY-OFFS
Semi-Finals
John Higgins 3-2 Tom Ford
0-73 (73), 0-90 (85), 78-32 (70), 57-55, 73-6
Kyren Wilson 3-1 Zhou Xintong
0-134 (104), 79-0 (79), 82-0 (82), 74-26
Final
Kyren Wilson 0–3 John Higgins
20-74, 59-49, 81-43 (73)
FINAL GROUP THREE TABLE
| PLD | W | L | FW | FL | PTS | |
| John Higgins | 6 | 4 | 2 | 16 | 10 | 4 |
| Kyren Wilson | 6 | 4 | 2 | 13 | 12 | 4 |
| Zhao Xintong | 6 | 3 | 3 | 13 | 15 | 3 |
| Tom Ford | 6 | 3 | 3 | 12 | 12 | 3 |
| Mark Selby | 6 | 3 | 3 | 11 | 12 | 3 |
| Scott Donaldson | 6 | 2 | 4 | 12 | 14 | 2 |
| Matthew Selt | 6 | 2 | 4 | 10 | 12 | 2 |