John Higgins

Infobox Snooker player
Name = John Higgins


Caption =
Born = birth date and age|1975|5|18
Birthplace = Wishaw, North Lanarkshire
Nationality = flagicon|Scotland Scottish
Nickname = Wizard of Wishaw
Professional = 1992–"present"
High ranking = #1 (3 years)
Current rank = #5
Prize money = GB£4,290,430 (up to end of 2007/2008 season)
High break = 147 (5 times)
Ranking wins = 18
Other wins = 9
World champ = 1998, 2007

John Higgins MBE (born May 18 1975, Wishaw, North Lanarkshire) is a Scottish professional snooker player. His World Championship victory in 2007 was his second world title, having also won in 1998. [ [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/more_sport/article1763986.ece The Times online] ] His achievements also include being the first teenager to win three ranking events in a season (1994/95), making 147s in successive matches (the 2003 LG Cup final, and the first round of the following tournament, the British Open), and a then record 494 unanswered points against Ronnie O'Sullivan in the final of the 2005 Grand Prix. In total, he was won 18 ranking titles.

Career Biography

Higgins turned professional in 1992, compiling 357 competitive centuries to date, including five 147 breaks (only O'Sullivan and Stephen Hendry have made more). In his career thus far, Higgins has won a total of 18 ranking tournaments.

His first tournament victory came in 1994 when he beat Dave Harold 9-6 in the final of the Grand Prix. He followed his victory in the Grand Prix by claiming the British and International Opens in 1995, making him the first teenager to win three ranking events in a single season.

Higgins’ career highlight to date has been winning the World Championship on two occasions – in 1998 and 2007; both times, this feat ensured that he finished the season with World number one status. In 1998, Higgins reached eight major finals, and approached the World Championship knowing that he must win the title, and hope that one-time practice partner Stephen Hendry would be defeated in the first round. This proved to be the case, as Hendry lost his opening match to Jimmy White, and Higgins went on to beat Jason Ferguson, Anthony Hamilton, John Parrott and Ronnie O’Sullivan, before overcoming defending champion Ken Doherty 18-12 in the final. He made a tournament-record 14 centuries in the event.

In the 1998/99 season, he clinched the UK Championship with a 10-6 win over Matthew Stevens, and the Masters, again beating Doherty – this time by 10-8, to become only the third player after Steve Davis and Stephen Hendry to hold the World, UK and Masters titles simultaneously, O'Sullivan and Mark J. Williams later joined this elite group. In addition, Higgins is one of just five players to have won both the World and UK Championship in the same year (1998); the others to accomplish this are Davis, Hendry, Parrott and O'Sullivan.

Higgins was to remain at the top of the rankings for two years – a 9-8 victory over Williams in the Grand Prix final in 1999, served to consolidate this position. Although he claimed the UK Championship in 2000 for a second time, defeating Williams by a margin of 10-4 in the final, the end of the 2000/01 campaign saw him displaced as World number one by the Welshman. At the beginning of the 2001/02 season, Higgins became the first player to win the opening three tournaments of a season: the Champions Cup and Scottish Masters (both invitational events), and the British Open. He reached the World final again in 2001 – on this occasion, losing out 18-14 to Ronnie O’Sullivan, and Higgins would, in fact, endure a three-year drought without a major title until winning the British Open for the fourth time in 2004. This lapse in form coincided with the birth of his first child – a son, Pierce, in 2001. In late 2004, John's wife, Denise, gave birth to their second son, Oliver.

In the 2005 Grand Prix final, Higgins beat Ronnie O'Sullivan by a margin of 9-2, and in doing so, became the first player to record four consecutive centuries in a match in a ranking tournament with breaks of 103, 104, 138 and 128 in frames 7 to 10, and scored 494 points without reply – which was the greatest number in any professional snooker tournament (in the 2007 Premier Snooker League, Ding Junhui managed 495 points without reply against Stephen Hendry). The pair met again in the 2006 Masters final at Wembley. This occasion proved to a more even affair; though Higgins trailed 0-3 early on, he had established a lead of 5-3 after the first session. O’Sullivan restored parity in the evening session, and both players traded blow for blow to set up a final frame decider. Here, O’Sullivan broke down on a break of 60 with a missed red to a baulk pocket, and a slow-rolled opening red to a centre pocket, which only just succumbed to gravity, constituted the start of a 64 clearance by Higgins to claim the title. Higgins reached a further two finals in the 2005/06 season, narrowly being beaten by Ken Doherty and Mark J. Williams in the Malta Cup and China Open, respectively. A shock loss to Mark Selby in the first round of the World Championship did not prevent him from regaining a top four ranking position at the end of the season.

In 2007, Higgins secured victories over Michael Holt, Fergal O'Brien, O'Sullivan, and Stephen Maguire en route to his first World Championship final in six years. His break of 122 in the 29th frame of his semi-final against Maguire – on recovering from a deficit of 10-14 going into the final session to prevail 17-15, was the 1,000th century to be made at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield since the World Championship was first staged there in 1977. Higgins went on to defeat Mark Selby 18-13 in the final to claim his second world title. He had held a 12-4 advantage overnight, but Selby reduced his arrears to trail by only 14-13 on the second day before Higgins refound his form to win four consecutive frames; this included a 57 clearance in frame 29 after Selby – leading 43-0, had overcut the pink to a middle pocket, and a 129 and 78 break in the two subsequent frames to close out the match.

2007/2008 was not such a successful season for Higgins, though he reached the quarter-finals of both the Welsh Open and China Open, and lost to the eventual winners of both the Grand Prix (Marco Fu) and Welsh Open. Mark Selby [http://www.worldsnooker.com/tournament_news(id19247)-85.htm] His defence of the World Championship fell in the second round with a 13-9 defeat to Ryan Day. Cite web
url = http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/other_sports/snooker/7368712.stm
title = Champion Higgins stunned by Day
publisher = BBC Sport
date = 2008-04-26
accessdate = 2008-07-15]

Life outside snooker

Higgins was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2008 New Year Honours. [ [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/glasgow_and_west/7163385.stm Snooker star Higgins gets honour] , BBC Sport, Retrieved on 29 December 2007]

He is a dedicated supporter of Celtic and often attends the team's matches. He plays online poker [http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2008/jan/11/smalltalk.sportinterviews] . He was forced off a plane for being drunk and disorderly in 2006, but became teetotal in the run-up to the 2007 World Championship [http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/sport/article27497.ece]

Higgins is married to Denise who has recently given birth to the couple's third child.

He is involved in running the World Series of Snooker [http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/rod_gilmour/blog/2008/04/21/newcomers_enjoy_snooker_resurgence] , along with his manager Pat Mooney and leading referee Michaela Tabb. He won the tour's first ever event, in St. Helier, Jersey in June 2008.

Tournament wins

;Ranking Tournaments;Other Major Tournaments

References

External links

*World Snooker|id=8772
* [http://www.globalsnookercentre.co.uk/files/Players/Global_Europe/Global_Scotland/p_profile040.htm Profile on globalsnookercentre.co.uk]