LONDON: English cueist Jack Lisowski stunned two-time champions, John Higgins, 6-3 in the first round of the ongoing Masters 2023 to storm through to the quarter-finals.
Lisowski, who had not won a match in the tournament before, fired all cylinders to make his maiden victory in the championship a big one as he downed former World Champion Higgins 6-3 in the Best of 11.
Lisowski made his intentions clear by sailing through in the first two opening frames as he dominated the Scottish legend by 68-40 and 89-5.
Higgins, however, made an astounding comeback in the match by completely outclassing Lisowski with the highest break of 142 to cut the latter’s lead by 2-1 but only for Lisowski to display alike performance in the fourth frame to restore his two-frame lead.
The two-time champion Higgins once again responded by winning the next frame but Lisowski soon moved one frame within the triumph by claiming two frames in a row.
Higgins again attempted to script a comeback by winning the eighth frame with 70-31 but Lisowski, fuelled with momentum seemed unaffected by it and dominated the former in the ninth frame with a century break to claim a historic victory.
Following his astonishing victory over Higgins, Lisowski now faces Iranian trailblazer Hossein Vafaei in the third quarter-final.
Meanwhile, in another round-one match, reigning World Champion Ronnie O’Sullivan thrashed rookie Luca Brecel to book his spot in the last eight.
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MILTON KEYNES: Scottish professional Snooker player John Higgins completed an astounding feat as he became just the second cueist in the professional circuit to score 900 centuries.
Amid the second-round fixture of the ongoing British Open 2022, Higgins scored a century in the fifth frame to take a 3-2 lead over his Chinese opponent Yuan SiJun.
The century in the fifth frame against SiJun marked the 900th in the professional career of the Welsh cueist, who, as a result, became just the second snooker player to achieve the milestone.
Seven-time world champion Ronnie O’Sullivan, however, is the first to achieve the feat and has currently the most number of centuries (1,172) in the span of his 30-year long career.
Higgins’ remarkable achievement was, however, spoiled by his opponent SiJun, who came from 3-2 down to defeat the former world champion 4-3 in the Best of Seven clash.
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SHEFFIELD: Â The Scottish Snooker player John Higgins secured a hard-fought victory as the fifth-ranked cueist edged past the 10th-ranked Jack Lisowski to book his semi-final clash with his English counterpart Ronnie O’Sullivan in the ongoing World Snooker Championship.
The four-time world champion Higgins experienced another tough competition in the championship as he had to fight hard to claim the quarter-final victory by defeating Lisowski 13-12 in the Best of 25.
With the scores levelled at 12-12, Higgins held his nerves calm and brought his experience into play as the veteran secured the deciding frame by the scores of 72-18.
The two cueists remained involved in a see-saw battle with Lisowski pulling ahead and Higgins levels and vice-versa.
In the last two frames, Lisowski was just one shy away from the victory but Higgins scored a brilliant century in the 24th frame before following up with an important 72 to book his spot in the semi-finals.
Higgins scored three centuries, including ten fifty-plus breaks and the best of them (123) came in the ninth frame.
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