By World Snooker Tour

John Higgins won the £150,000 BetVictor Series bonus for topping the ranking list despite not hitting a ball in Gibraltar on Saturday.

Scotland’s Higgins lost in the last 32 at the BetVictor Gibraltar Open on Friday but none of the players chasing him were able to surpass his total, so the 46-year-old banks the massive bonus for the first time.

Surprisingly, Higgins has finished top of the list despite not winning any of the eight events in the 2021/22 BetVictor Series. He was runner-up at three of the four BetVictor Home Nations events and reached the last 32 of three other tournaments.

He finishes the series tied with Mark Allen with £101,000, but ahead of Allen on countback, having gone further at the BetVictor European Masters. Both players reached the same stage of the subsequent events in Wales and Gibraltar.

Ten players could have overtaken Higgins in Gibraltar and captured the bonus, but all of them fell by the wayside. Ricky Walden was the last man standing and would have taken the £150,000 by winning the title, but his semi-final defeat against Kyren Wilson was good news for Higgins’ bank balance.

Four-time World Champion Higgins becomes the first player to win the BetVictor Series bonus other than Judd Trump, who topped the list in 2020 and 2021.

John Higgins, 2021/22 BetVictor Series

BetVictor Northern Ireland Open: Runner-up
BetVictor English Open: Runner-up
BetVictor Scottish Open: Runner-up
BildBet German Masters: Last 128
BetVictor Shoot Out: Did not enter
BetVictor European Masters: Last 32
BetVictor Welsh Open: Last 32
BetVictor Gibraltar Open: last 32