Almost 35 years after first turning professional, John Higgins is still making history. The latest milestone has seen him become the oldest man to reach a World Snooker Championship semi-final since 1985 and one fellow player has pinpointed the secret weapon that he believes keeps the Scot at the top of the snooker world into his 50s.
Higgins, who turns 51 next month, has had a remarkable run at the Crucible, beating two-time world finalist Ali Carter, the greatest player of all-time Ronnie O’Sullivan and 2010 world champion Neil Robertson to reach the last four, despite trailing after the first session of each match.
He at least ended that streak of early deficits in the first session of his semi-final against Shaun Murphy on Thursday afternoon, battling hard despite not having his A-game to salvage a 4-4 tie in the opening exchanges of the best-of-33 contest.
Murphy looked almost guaranteed to carry a lead into the second session on Friday morning when he raced into a 3-1 advantage, with breaks of 100, 69 and 68 seeing him completely outplay the veteran Scot. But Higgins, as is his way, dug in, winning two scrappy frames to level the match at 3-3 and even after losing frame seven, made his highest break of the day – a run of 50 – in the last to leave things all square overnight.
Although four-time world champion Higgins didn’t have his scoring boots on, his tight safety and granite matchplay made things hard for Murphy after the mid-session interval and this ability to limit the chances he gives his opponent is exactly what Robertson was so begrudgingly impressed by during his quarter-final loss to the 50-year-old.
Higgins trailed 9-7 heading into the third and final session of that last-eight clash but ground his opponent down and fought his way to a 13-10 win that ensured he was the oldest man since Ray Reardon 41 years ago to reach a World Championship semi-final. Should he beat Murphy, he’ll become the oldest finalist in the history of the tournament.
And the always gracious Australian claimed that even the expert pundits and commentators wouldn’t have appreciated just how brilliant Higgins’ tactical play was in their gruelling scrap.
“His safety was unbelievable, it really was,” explained Robertson. “It’s just the little angles that he’s creating that commentators wouldn’t notice and perhaps people watching wouldn’t notice.
“But when you’re out there and he’s blocking angles by an inch or two at a time, it’s something to really sort of appreciate. I wasn’t enjoying it too much, but I was admiring it.”
Robertson could barely believe the way that Higgins also dug himself out of the holes he was put in and thinks that he would have beaten almost any other opponent on the day at the Crucible.
“I played probably about eight frame-winning safety shots in that match that John got out of,” added Robertson. “If I’m playing any other person apart from Mark Selby or John, I’d probably get in and win those frames.
“I went into my chair thinking ‘I’ve absolutely nailed him’. He tapped the table, with a huge problem to solve, and I’m thinking I’m going to get in. But I was hardly able to get a look at a long red with my hand on the table once in the match.
“Everything was on the cushion all the time and he was just cutting out the angles for the shots to nothing. He wasn’t allowing me to play thick safeties off the pack. He was blocking them with the colours so well. Tactically it was a masterclass that 99 per cent of people wouldn’t see. It was very difficult for me to break down and create the opportunities.”
Murphy has played as well as anyone in the tournament so far and believes things might just be lining up for him to claim a second world title, meaning Higgins will need to continue to stifle his opponent when their semi-final resumes at 10am on Friday morning, with the third session being played that evening and the match then being completed on Saturday afternoon.
In the other semi-final, 22-year-old Wu Yize produced a scintillating opening session to lead Mark Allen 6-2, with five breaks of more than 50 putting the Chinese star in control early on. They resume at 2.30pm on Friday.
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