2025 Tour Championship Day 4 and a bit of history…

Hereafter you will find the reports shared by WST about what happened on the baize yesterday.

Resurgent Higgins Sets Up Hawkins Semi

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.

Evening session

On the 20th anniversary of his first ranking title, Ding Junhui enjoyed another momentous victory with a 10-5 defeat of Kyren Wilson in the quarter-finals of the Sportsbet.io Tour Championship.

Ding will now meet Mark Selby, who crushed Neil Robertson 10-1. In a week of one-sided scorelines, this was one of the heaviest defeats of Robertson’s career, while Selby stepped up his bid for a fourth title of the season. In a rematch of the 2016 Crucible final, Ding and Selby will go head to head over 19 frames on Saturday.

At the 2005 China Open, Ding beat Stephen Hendry in the final, taking his first step towards superstardom. He has since become Asia’s most successful ever player, with 15 ranking titles to his name, and helping snooker to become one of the most popular sports in his homeland. Now age 38, Ding is still capable of beating any opponent, as he proved at the International Championship in November when he lifted the trophy. And today he outplayed World Champion Wilson, who won his fourth title of the season at the recent Sportsbet.io Players Championship.

Breaks of 123, 73, 76, 59 and 80 helped Ding to a 7-1 first session lead. Another run of 80 gave him the first frame tonight, before Wilson took the next two. In frame 12, Ding led 63-0 when he missed a red to a centre pocket and Wilson cleared with 66 to threaten a fight back.

Ding took frame 13 for 9-4, before Wilson pulled one more back with a 106. A break of 63 put Ding in control of frame 15 and he edged over the line as Wilson’s battle to gain the snookers he required ended on the green.

“Before the match there was no pressure, but tonight I really wanted to win, especially as I had a big lead,” said world number nine Ding. “I missed a few chances to win so I had to really concentrate. Maybe this is my lucky day, like 20 years ago. Winning big matches and long matches builds up my confidence.

“I have played Mark many times and it is always very tough. He had a very good scoreline today. I am hitting the ball well on most shots, it’s the way I like to play.”

Wilson said: “I left myself with too much to do. I changed my tip before the session tonight and I was getting through the ball better. Every credit to Ding, he was fantastic this afternoon. It might be a good thing because it gives me two weeks to rest before the World Championship.“

Four-time World Champion Selby looked close to his best in an outstanding display, albeit against an opponent who was suffering from illness today. Leicester’s Selby is through to the semi-finals of this event for the fourth time and hopes to reach his first final.

In Wednesday’s night’s opening session, world number three Selby compiled breaks of 51, 69, 105, 86 and 68 in building a 7-1 lead. He needed just 42 minutes to wrap up the match tonight, adding runs of 65, 124 and 123. Selby has now made 65 centuries this season, his highest ever total.

“I am really pleased to beat Neil by any scoreline,” said 43-year-old Selby, who has already won the Unibet British Open, BetVictor Championship League and BetVictor Welsh Open this season. “Last night 7-1 flattered me because there were three or four frames which could have gone either way. I just need to keep my tempo up and follow up each good performance with another one.

“It’s good to see Ding playing well because he is a great lad and what he has done for us in China is incredible. We owe him a lot, if it wasn’t for him we wouldn’t be going out there for so many big tournaments.”

I watched the Ding v Wilson match and, unfortunately, it was an anti-climax. To be fair to Kyren, he didn’t look well. He had this nosebleed in the first session and didn’t look his usual self in the second session either. He battled with all he had, but it clearly wasn’t his day, on and off the table. That said ,Ding played really well and when he does he’s a delight to watch. He’s a beautiful, beautiful player, is Ding. Precise, smooth, elegant …

As WST mentions, it was the 20th anniversary of Ding’s first tournament win. Ding was only 18 at the time, barely more than a kid and very, very shy. Hendry, of course was a seven times World Champion. He wasn’t at the peak of his powers anymore but he was still a force in the game. Ding’s win felt like thunder striking in a clear blue sky!

Not many at the time understood the long term consequences of that win and, even when the first contingent of Chinese players arrived in the UK, a lot of fans gave them no chance to succeed. They needed a bit of time to adapt, their impact wasn’t immediate but here we are now, with several events in China every season and a strong contingent of Chinese players, including a very “healthy number” of very good youngsters. A revolution started on that day.

That tournament was extraordinary in the most literal sense of the word. Like several other Chinese players, Ding had given up his normal tournament entry position and, instead he had taken an offer to enter the tournament as a wild-card player. As a result, he did not receive any prize money nor ranking points for his tournament win but he took the trophy and started a revolution.

There was a very extensive “wild card round” to start the tournament. Incredibly it featured 16 Asian wildcards, facing 16 professional players. Those wildcards, as mentioned already, didn’t get anything for their efforts, other than exposure and the opportunity for the amateurs among them to play main tour professionals.

Here is how that wildcard round panned out: