John Higgins came from 8-5 down to beat Mark Selby 10-8 in a record-equalling final at the Sportsbet.io Tour Championship, describing it as the best win of his 33-year career.
Higgins is a veteran of four World Championship crowns and 33 ranking titles but such was the nature of tonight’s victory that he rates it above any other achievement. He looked down and out when he lost seven frames in a row to go 8-5 behind, but rose to the occasion to reel off the last five to capture this trophy for the first time and earn the £150,000 top prize.
A clash between two of the all-time greats lived up to its billing as both players made four centuries, equalling the record of eight tons in a best-of-19 contest, set by Neil Robertson and Judd Trump at the 2019 Champion of Champions final. The crowd at Manchester Central enjoyed a dramatic finish as 49-year-old Higgins proved the stronger man in the closing exchanges, freezing out one of snooker’s toughest ever opponents.
Scotland’s Higgins went through what he described as “mental turmoil” for several years after winning the 2021 Players Championship, as he developed a tendency to squander winning positions in key matches, most painfully at the 2022 Tour Championship final against Robertson when he lost 10-9 from 9-4 ahead. Victory at last month’s World Open in China was a massive breakthrough and has given him new belief which was clearly evident tonight. This week he has been at the very top of his game, making 11 centuries in three matches, and will be one of the leading contenders when he heads to the Crucible this month.
“It is my best ever win,” said Higgins, who is just 42 days away from his 50th birthday. “I was playing an unbelievable champion and he was looking like he was not going to miss, he was tying me up in knots. To do that against Mark gives me incredible belief that I can still mix it with the best players.“
With 33 ranking crowns, Higgins is now just three short of Stephen Hendry’s tally of 36, albeit still well behind Ronnie O’Sullivan’s record of 41. He extends his record for the longest gap between first and most recent ranking titles: it’s 30 years and 165 days since his maiden victory at the 1994 Grand Prix. The Wishaw cueman climbs from sixth to third in the Johnstone’s Paint World Rankings, behind only Judd Trump and Kyren Wilson.
Selby missed out on a fourth title of the season and 25th ranking success of his career. He too made 11 centuries over the week and enjoyed emphatic wins over Neil Robertson 10-1 and Ding Junhui 10-2, but came up just short of a first Tour Championship success. The 41-year-old from Leicester earned £60,000 as runner-up.
Trailing 5-3 after the first session, Selby took the opening frame tonight with breaks of 39 and 68, then dominated a fragmented tenth frame to square the tie. Higgins trailed 41-25 in the 11th when he accidentally hit the yellow when trying to play safe, gifting Selby the chance to make 55 and take the lead for the first time. Leading 31-18, Higgins missed the pink to a top corner in frame 12, and Selby capitalised with a 77 clearance. The Englishman extended his lead to 8-5 with a break of 119.
Having lost seven in succession from 5-1 up, Higgins finally gained some momentum with a break of 110 to close to 8-6. A fluked red in frame 15 set him up for a run of 67 to close the gap to 8-7, and he got the better of a scrappy 34-minute 16th to restore parity. Higgins enjoyed another slice of luck in the 17th when he fluked a snooker on a red over a baulk corner, and from the chance that followed he made an excellent 80 to regain the lead. Selby narrowly missed a long red early in the 18th, and a classic final ended on a high note with Higgins’ match-winning 132.
“Mark shut me out up to 8-5,” Higgins added. “I was trying to stay positive but that’s very difficult because you are banging your head against a brick wall sometimes. Usually he would just pull away and win 10-5. When I made the break to go 8-6 it was beginning to change, little things went in my favour and you need that against Mark. The World Championship is a different animal. I will just enjoy the next two weeks and then go to Sheffield and give it my all. I am very proud.
“To have my family there was special because when they have been there before when I won events, they might be too young to remember. The crowd gave me great support, it’s a fantastic venue. I hope this event stays here for a few more years.”
Selby said: “John was incredible from 8-5. I missed a pink to the middle at 8-7, apart from that I didn’t do a lot wrong, but my head was spinning. Every mistake I made, John punished me, he stood up like the warrior he is.“
It was a very good match and one that brought “suspense” from start to finish. Thank you Mark and John!
Now, I have to make an admission… something I’m not proud about …
Since 2010 I really wanted John Higgins to lose every match he played because I felt that he hadn’t been punished as he should have been after he was caught on camera accepting to fix matches and even promising to drag more players into that match fixing “monkey business”. John always said that he acted out of fear, although he certainly didn’t appear frightened in the video. But then, videos can be doctored in various ways. My biggest problem with John is that he had been back in the UK for about two days before the NOTW article was published and had not alerted the snooker authorities about the approach. I always thought that giving a simple phone call to a member of the board, just saying “we had a problem in Kiev, we need to talk”, would have been enough to spare him all the problems he had to face afterwards, and the damage to his reputation. The fact that he didn’t call got me to think that he had no intention to report it at all. But who at the board should he have contacted? If this happened today, the answer is obvious, it would be Jason Ferguson. But back then, the organisation was different. Different members of the board had been tasked to develop the game in different regions. For instance, the late Brandon Parker had been tasked to develop the game in Western Europe where he had contacts. And who was in charge of Eastern Europe? No other than Pat Mooney, who was John’s manager and who had taken John with him to Kiev after John had lost early at the Crucible, and Mooney himself admitted that he had kept John in the dark about what was really going to be discussed in Kiev, until the last minute. So maybe John didn’t call anyone on the board, because, of course, he knew that the member of the board in charge of the Eastern Europe region already knew what happened, as he was present at the meeting.
Ronnie O'Sullivan 