Just six weeks short of his 50th birthday, John Higgins remains determined to compete at snooker's highest level and moved into the semi-finals of the Sportsbet.io Tour Championship with an emphatic 10-3 victory over Xiao Guodong.
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After a four year drought without a ranking title, when he had doubts as to whether he still belonged at the sport's top table, Higgins enjoyed a landmark success at the World Open in China last month. That triumph has given the legendary Scot fresh confidence, and that showed as he reeled off seven frames in a row from 3-3 to beat Xiao with ease.
"I won tough games at the World Open, coming back from a few frames down," said world number six Higgins today. "It has given me back the belief in my game and my fighting qualities, that I can still do it at this level, that has been the most important thing. Big players are winning multiple events, that's what I need to try to do. I still want to compete with them. If I ever lose that I have got no chance."
Higgins is into the semi-finals in Manchester and will meet another player in form, Barry Hawkins, over 19 frames on Friday. Two more wins would give Higgins a 33rd ranking title and would boost him to third in the Johnstone's Paint World Rankings.
He led China's Xiao 5-3 after the first session, and added the five frames he needed today with top breaks of 61, 87, 100. Over the match, the four-time Crucible king made four centuries and three more breaks over 50 as he booked an 88th ranking event semi-final.
Higgins and wife Denise will spend Thursday evening in Manchester watching Dutch conductor André Rieu and his Johann Strauss Orchestra. Back on the baize tomorrow, Higgins will be hoping to waltz into the final. "Barry is an unbelievable player," he added. "I watched a bit of his matches with Shaun Murphy and Judd Trump and he has been nearly flawless. He has beaten me a couple of times this season so I will need to play better."
On the other table, it was a bad afternoon for World Champion Kyren Wilson as he suffered a nosebleed and fell 7-1 down against Ding Junhui. Wilson beat world number one Judd Trump 10-9 in the final of the Sportsbet.io Players Championship in Telford, but both players could be absent from the last four this week.
China's Ding looked sharp in a 10-3 first round win over Mark Williams and was by far the stronger player today. Wilson took the opening frame with a break of 70 before Ding took seven in a row with top runs of 126, 73, 76, 59 and 80. The match was halted during the seventh frame so that Wilson could take time backstage to recover from his nosebleed. Back on the table he couldn't wrestle the initiative from Ding, and the Warrior will need to win nine of the last 11 frames when they return at 7pm.