John Higgins wins a record 4th Welsh Title

John Higgins recorded a 9-3 victory over Ben Woolaston in tonight's final in Cardiff.

The Wizard of Wishaw won his first ranking title since the 2012 Shanghai Masters and his 26th ranking event. Higgins was throughout the stronger player as Ben Woolaston struggled to get anything going in his first full ranking event final. Despite being outplayed in the first session, it was an outrageous fluke for Higgins prevented Woolaston leveling the session at 4-4. Instead Higgins took a crucial 5-3 advantage into the evening session.


In the first frame of the evening session Higgins potted a great long red and made twenty before going in-off while splitting the red. Woolaston was never able to get an easy opportunity though and was snatching at any half chance. John wasn't really missing but was running out of position and there was a real feeling of tension for both players. A similar pattern followed in a very tense 2nd frame which Higgins also won. Once 7-3 infront Higgins relaxed and was able to take the next two frames relatively easily.

Unfortunately it wasn't a great final, John did enough to win comfortably without ever really needing to raise his game, while Ben struggled to settle his nerves. However only a few weeks after losing to an amateur in the China Open qualifying this has proven to be the best week of Ben Woolaston's career and he will hope to build on it for the remaining few weeks of the season. He will rise to a career high ranking of 28 and a similar deep run in a ranking event could see him challenge for the top 16.

For John he has all buy cemented his place in the top 16 for the remainder of the season and will be looking to kick on from this weeks success. I've been saying for a few tournaments I believe I've seen some form in Higgins & that it's been the mental side of the game that's been letting him down. It will be interesting to see if he stops beating himself up over little set backs in matches and return to the granite match player which has led him to Four world titles.

The snooker schedule is packed in the lead up to the World Championships in April. Next up is a few of the smaller events before a ranking event pile up in mid March. The players will be flying to Poland in a week for the Gydnia Open.