The quarter-finals at the 2025 Welsh Open in Llandudno delivered some very hard fought battles and unexpected comebacks. Here are the reports shared by WST:
Mark Selby beat John Higgins 5-4 in a marathon five-hour tussle to reach the semi-finals of the BetVictor Welsh Open for the first time since 2012.
…
Two of snooker’s toughest match-players produced a contest which was low on quality by their high standards, but bubbled to an exciting conclusion, Selby getting the better of a tense decider to reach his 65th ranking event semi-final. He will meet Luca Brecel on Saturday as he continues his quest for a third title of the season, having already won the Unibet British Open and BetVictor Championship League Invitational.
“We both struggled and brought each other down, there were a lot of scrappy frames,” admitted world number four Selby, who landed the first of his 23 ranking titles at the Welsh Open in 2008, but has not won it since. “If one of us had played better, the other might have raised his game. The only positive for me is that I got over the line and I can only improve tomorrow. If I had lost I would have been gutted, but now I can put that behind me.”
Leicester’s Selby took the opening frame on a respotted black, and the second on the colours. A break of 68 helped Higgins pull one back, and in frame four he converted a thundering a long pot on the penultimate red to create the chance for 2-2. The fifth frame lasted 62 minutes, resolved when Higgins potted brown and blue to go ahead, before Selby’s run of 53 helped him restore parity. In the seventh, Higgins was on 61 when he over-cut a tricky thin red, and his opponent later made a 42 clearance to edge 4-3 ahead.
Selby was 15 points behind in frame eight when he missed the final green to a baulk corner, allowing Higgins to force the decider. The key moment came when Scotland’s Higgins, down 35-13, potted the blue to a centre pocket and was unlucky not to gain position on a red. He then played a loose safety, and Selby slotted in a long red to set up a match-winning 84, his highest break of the day.
Higgins, still seeking a first ranking title since the 2021 Players Championship, said: “It was a mammoth game, I gave it everything. I know the shots but I’ve got deficiencies in my game. I just can’t bring myself to play the right shot, that’s the disappointing thing. At 3-3 when I was on 61, I had to play a high black into the pack, when I have been playing the low black and screwing into the reds. I just don’t have the cue power to play those sort of shots. If I had gone 4-3 up then who knows. But Mark made a great clearance under pressure in the last frame.“
Selby against Brecel will be a rematch of the 2023 Crucible final, which the Belgian won 18-15. Surprisingly, this will be Brecel’s first ranking semi-final since that event 21 months ago. He beat Jackson Page 5-2 today to add momentum to his recent return to form.
There’s no shortage of incentive for 29-year-old Brecel over the last weekend in Llandudno as if he beats Selby he will climb into the top 32 of the Johnstone’s Paint One-Year Rankings and earn a place in the World Grand Prix in Hong Kong next month. If he then goes on to take the title, he will win not just the £100,000 top prize and Ray Reardon Trophy, but also the £150,000 BetVictor Bonus which goes to the player who earns the most money across the BetVictor Home Nations Series.
World number seven Brecel took the first two frames against Page before his opponent, the last Welshman in the field, responded with 67 and 103 for 2-2. After the interval, Brecel looked the stronger player, and compiled breaks of 94 and 76 in taking the last three frames. “I enjoyed the game and took my chances,” said Brecel after reaching his 12th ranking event semi-final.
The Selby v Higgins match is the one I watched. It lasted for so long that eventually WST decided to start the other afternoon match on table 2 instead of table 1 as originally planned because, obviously, delaying it further would have caused serious scheduling issues. It wasn’t a high quality match but it was fascinating albeit painful to watch at times. I’m happy with the outcome. I really like Mark Selby as a person, even if, at times, I find his game a bit too “conservative” and hard to watch. I used to like John Higgins, who is a wonderful snooker player, but no more after what happened in 2010. I know that he was set up but he didn’t know that, so what he did is what he would have done if the approach had been “real”. He could have talked to World snooker after the approach, and he would have been alright, but, as a matter of fact, he didn’t. If it had happened today and if he was a young Chinese lad, he would have got a very lengthy ban. I’m 100% sure of that. As it is, he only missed a few minor events early in the next season, and to be fair to Higgins, he gave it 100% on his return, but still … Pat Mooney, who, at the time, had been approached/appointed by Hearn as director in charge of the development of snooker in Eastern Europe, was “excluded” from all snooker involvement for life. That was the right decision and it tells enough about the seriousness of the incident even if it has been downplayed by some1 since. It was made even worse by the fact that John was still the reigning World Champion when it happened. Also I always wondered what were the real motives of the “NOTW” or of whoever “tipped” them2 … that aspect was never elucidated or explained IF someone at WST actually knows the truth about that aspect of the “scandal”. I always wondered if the real “target” may actually have been to discredit Hearn who had just taken over the sport and had appointed Mooney to his team.
Stephen Maguire reached his first ranking event semi-final in four years with a 5-3 victory over Jack Lisowski at the BetVictor Welsh Open – a result which could earn him a place in next month’s World Grand Prix in Hong Kong.
…
Six-time ranking event champion Maguire has had few moments in the limelight in recent seasons and has dropped to 29th in the world, but the 43-year-old has shown fighting spirit this week and is into the last four for the first time since the 2021 Welsh Open. On Saturday night in Llandudno he’ll meet Ali Carter, who recovered a 3-1 deficit to beat Joe O’Connor 5-3.
Glasgow’s Maguire came into this week needing a deep run to move into the top 32 of the Johnstone’s Paint One-Year Rankings and earn a place in Hong Kong in March. As it stands he is in 32nd place, though he could yet be ousted by Luca Brecel if the Belgian beats Mark Selby in Saturday’s first semi-final.
Lisowski, still seeking his first ranking title, started strongly tonight as breaks of 85 and 93 put him 2-1 ahead. In the fourth frame he potted eight reds with blacks but then – perhaps chasing a 147 chance – missed a risky red and Maguire pinched the frame for 2-2. The next two were shared before Maguire’s run of 66 put him 4-3 up. In frame eight, Maguire led 24-0 when he missed a red to a top corner with the rest, but Lisowski couldn’t capitalise as his counter ended on 29 with a failed red to centre. A further 47 was enough for Maguire to reach his 36th ranking semi-final.
“Jack looked brilliant early on, I thought he was going to make a maximum in the fourth frame,” said the Scot. “I managed to nick that one and it changed the match. My cueing was a lot better tonight, though I still threw in a few stupid shots and I’m a long way off my best. I’m still fighting. I felt edgy tonight when it was 3-3 because it was a big match for me, it’s nerve-racking out there. I’ll be excited tomorrow and looking forward to it more, I love the one table set up.”
Carter won the first of his six ranking titles at this event back in 2009, and his most recent at the BetVictor Championship League at the start of this season. Despite suffering from illness this week, he has reeled off four wins to earn a 32nd career ranking semi-final. He and Maguire, both known for a fiery temperament, met in the semi-finals at the Crucible back in 2012, Carter winning 17-12 and the world number 15 will hope to come out on top again this time.
O’Connor looked the stronger player in the early stages, and though Carter made a break of 90 in the third frame, he lost the other three before the interval. But O’Connor mustered just 27 points in the last four frames as Carter dominated with top runs of 62, 66 and 91.
“I came here feeling very rough with a virus, I just had to get through the early rounds to give myself a chance,” said the Essex cueman. “At the interval I said to my coach Chris Henry that I still felt I could play well and I was just going to go for it. I have played some turgid stuff this week, but that was by far my best tonight from 3-1 down.“
Jack I’m afraid was his infuriating self again. Brilliant at the start of the match but apparently collapsing when put under pressure by his opponent. I write “apparently” because that’s how it feels, but I wonder if there might be some other issue. Maybe what Jack went through as a young lad, beating cancer, left him vulnerable to fatigue and he simply can’t sustain the required level of concentration for long? If that is the cause of the problem, it’s a crying shame because, when in full flow, he’s wonderful to watch.
- Most notably by Steve Davis, who at the time was in tears in the media room, convinced that snooker was doomed… ↩︎
- Pat Mooney and John Higgins had tried to promote snooker through a series of events across Europe: The World Series of Snooker. It was a great initiative but it didn’t get the success they expected. It had left them with some huge debts and the players involved had not been paid in full yet. ↩︎
Ronnie O'Sullivan 