The ‘Champion of Champions‘ is a special snooker tournament. It’s an invitational event, and those who take part are the winners of major tournaments over the past year. This year’s staging took place at the Ricoh Arena, Coventry, England, where Australia’s Neil Robertson attempted to defend his trophy. Robertson didn’t fare too well, falling to Stuart Bingham by four frames to two in the first round.
Coming through three matches to reach the final, John Higgins continued the form he showed in winning the China Championship last week (where he beat Stuart Bingham in the final 10-7, as Digital Journal reported). In his semi-final match, Higgins scraped past China’s Ding Junhui 6-5, a game where Ding fired in four century breaks.
Meeting Higgins in the final was five time world champion Ronnie O’Sullivan. To reach the final, O’Sullivan disposed of Northern Ireland’s Mark Allen relatively comfortably 6-2.
In the final, the match began fairly evenly with both Higgins and O’Sullivan trading frames. At four each, Higgins missed a straightforward brown into one of the middle pockets and O’Sullivan cleared the table to take a 5-4 advantage at the end of the first session. Although neither player made a century break, both appeared sharp and fluent. Higgins compiled three breaks over 70 (74, 75 and 79); and O’Sullivan had breaks of 88 and 90 (made in successive frames). Overall the standard during the afternoon session was high and the play saw eight of the nine frames decided by breaks over 60.
The close play continued into the evening session, with neither player able to exert and advantage. Higgins was slightly surer on the shot and his safety play was stronger, attributed that accounted for the Scot going 7-6 in front. O’Sullivan, however, leveled the match by making a superb break of 130. From 7-7 Higgins responded well and ran out the final three frames for the match. During this final flourish Higgins restricted O’Sullivan to just one point.
The frame scores were (Higgins first):
First session:
75-0 (75), 19-69 (68), 74-3 (74), 1-100 (88), 0-90 (90), 79-0 (79), 74-4 (65), 29-88 (61), 48-82
Second session:
62-23 (60), 64-21 (63), 0-77 (74), 88-0 (83), 0-134 (130), 76-0 (76), 86-1 (86), 113-0 (58)
At 41 years of age Higgins continued to show some of his best form and he is certainly playing better than any time over the past three or so years. On winning the tournament, Higgins scooped £100,000 ($130,000).
