Seven months ago, John Higgins slipped from the top 16 of the world and the time father seemed ready to take another big snooker of all time.
At the 49 -year -old Scottish credit, he returned to the higher level of sport to qualify for the Masters in January. In the six-images race, Higgins fled in an advance of 5-0 against Neil Robertson. He looked at each thumb for the quadruple world champion of the past.
Unfortunately, Robertson fought to win 6-5 and Higgins was eliminated in the first round. It was the last scary defeat on one of the big stages of “The Wizard of Wishaw”. His powers seemed to be on the decline.
Quick advance until mid-April and Higgins won two professional titles in 2025 and was ranked third in the world.
So can the sorcerer Really Draw another hats rabbit and win a fifth world title?
He certainly still has a few laps in his round. Winning breeds of trust and now that Higgins has rediscovered his belief, he is a dangerous opponent for anyone in the coming fortnight in Sheffield.
Higgins celebrates his victory over Mark Selby in the final of the Tour championship at the beginning of the month
The Ecossais is back in shape and is gaining momentum in this year’s world championship
Before his victory in China, it was four years without professional title professional for Higgins
The Scottish participation in this year’s world championship was questioned. A few days before the tournament, his stepfather underwent a heart attack. Fortunately, he is now at home to recover.
Higgins had a limited time to prepare for a difficult confrontation in the first round with Joe O’Connor. In a war of attrition, the Scottish prevailed 10-7 in a tense case and Higgins admitted that it was “drained” thereafter. With a delicate link on the first round of the way, the Scottish hopes to start. He plays the world n ° 14 Xiao Guodong in the second round.
The crucible theater wrote many fairy tales. Ronnie O’Sullivan and Stephen Hendry winning seven world championships and Dennis Taylor’s victory over Steve Davis on the black ball in the 1985 decisive setting are all engraved in the minds of each fan, whatever the age.
Higgins winning a fifth world title – 14 years after his fourth – and becoming the oldest winner of the world championship of all time? It would be quite the story of what has been, and is always an incredible career. It deserves a place in the folklore of snooker.
His confidence was weak at the turn of the year and the defeat in the first round against Robertson seemed to accelerate what seemed to be the last chapter of Higgins’ career. Before winning the world open in China last month, Higgins had spent four years without professional title of the snooker tour.
His defeat of O’Connor in Yushan lit a fire under the Scottish. This ended a trophy and stopped a rot of five successive defeats in the final – three of them in a shooting of the last frame.
The touring championship is the last calendar event before Le Monde and Higgins also claimed this title. He declared it “the best victory of his career”. No wonder the circumstances.
Higgins had experience on his side while he broke O’Connor 10-6 in China, broke the record of the oldest player to win a professional tournament since Ray Reardon in 1982.
The Wishaw Wishaw with Old Rival Selby before their Championship Tour Championship event
It would not be so simple against another quadruple world champion in Mark Selby. The Manchester final a little over fifteen was a matter upside down.
Higgins stole the traps and loaded a 5-1 lead in the ten-images race. The Englishman overturned the script and transformed this deficit into an advance of 8-5. The scars of old were again wide, but Higgins widely dug to win the last five images and take a high quality final 10-8 where eight centuries were manufactured, four by each player.
It was a vintage performance that showed all the characteristics of the 33 -year -old professional career in Higgins. A masterclass in breakup, a solid security game and a desire to win that was simply unparalleled in its pump. There were no weaknesses, not this time.
“This is my best victory for all time,” said Higgins, who has 33 professional victories and nine Triple Crown titles. “You play a player of a player and to be 5-1 then 8-5 below, you do not return and win five consequences against Selby normally. I managed to do it, so it’s incredible.
Selby noted: “He (Higgins) is incredible and that is why he is an excellent big. The way he played 8 to 5 … I put him and he got up like the warrior he is.
Higgins is a rejuvenated character and, in the draw in Sheffield, he is the last Scottish Standing before the tournament even begins. Stephen Maguire, Scott Donaldson and Ross Muir failed to qualify, while young Liam Graham has also failed the exhausting qualification process, but is to be monitored in the future.
Higgins paraded his first world title to the home of his beloved Celtic in 1998
The last time Scotland had only one player in the main draw was 1990. It was Stephen Hendry. He won the tournament, which was the first of his seven world titles, and was the third seeded. A positive omen if there was one.
Higgins has been prevailed for 14 years. On the way to this fourth world title, he was sadly famous in the 2011 semi-finals against Mark Williams by a member of the crowd for an alleged match match. When you run 14-13 and at the table in the semi-finals, someone shouted: “How did you swallow 300,000, John?”
Higgins was sentenced to a fine of £ 75,000 and gave a six -month ban for having narrowed the game and not telling the authorities that he was approached to break the rules of Paris when she was taken in a newspaper in Ukraine in 2010. In Kyiv, Higgins and her manager of the time were filmed to agree on £ 300,000 to lose specific frames.
His manager was suspended for life. Higgins was rid of fixing the matches and promised to restore his reputation, but the fact that he was in the world No. 1 at the time of the incident was a sorry episode for a sport that had many problems of alleged match fixing. Higgins was by far the most prominent player in order to be wrapped in all of this.
This incident will always haunt him, but it is undeniable that his status as a large one of all time, his longevity and its mental tenacity at the upper table with the other two members of the “92 class” in O’Sullivan and Williams are nothing less than remarkable.
Now that he has rediscovered the art of winning, Higgins has a huge chance of becoming five -time world champion.
That, at the age of 49 and a month before his 50th birthday, he has the power to overcome the line is questionable, but it would be stupid to write a Higgins in good shape.
“The Wishaw sorcerer” could again launch his fate on the crucible.
