Snooker:John Higgins completed an emotional victory in the Welsh Open after defeating Stephen Maguire 9-6 in the final. Playing in his first tournament since the death from cancer of his father, John Sr, Higgins held himself together and completed his run to the title with a hard-fought win over his close friend and fellow Scot.
Maguire led 5-2 at one point but Higgins responded by winning five frames in succession and then hauling himself over the line in a tense finish to frame 15.
Breaks of 59 and 53 helped Maguire move 2-0 up and, after a clearance of 120 in frame three got Higgins on the board, responded with 89 before what was, incredibly, his only missed pot before the mid-session interval.
Maguire led 58-4 in the first frame back and looked set to open up a commanding 4-1 lead, but a superb clearance of 68 got Higgins back into the match.
The breaks kept on coming from Maguire, though, a 76 moving him 4-2 ahead before he took a scrappy seventh frame to ensure he would take a lead into the evening session.
Higgins kept that margin to two frames at 5-3, though, with a break of 70 — and then took all four frames before the evening’s mid-session break.
He made 42 in the first but Maguire had the chance to steal it, missing a difficult frame-ball pink. Higgins took advantage, a fortunate ricochet from the jaws of the corner pocket leaving him perfectly on the crucial black.
Maguire was unlucky to run out of position on a break of 48 in frame 10 and was forced into a very difficult long red on his next visit. The resulting miss left the reds perfectly spread for Higgins and he cleared in style to level the match.
The failure to kill off frames was hurting Maguire and the pattern was repeated in frame 11, a break of 44 and a 56-point lead proving insufficient as Higgins
once more roared back to take the lead for the first time.
A 75 sparked by a superb long red gave Higgins his fifth frame in succession and sent him to the interval 7-5 up and needing just two frames.
Maguire refocused during the 15 minutes away and came out all guns blazing. He potted six reds and blacks but was forced to put any thoughts of a 147 out of his mind, settling for 75 to win the frame.
But breaks of 54 and 66 took Higgins within one frame of victory and a 72 left him on the brink of victory, with Maguire needing two snookers. He got them,
laying brilliant snookers on the final red and the green, but went in off attempting an ambitious brown and Higgins dropped it in to clinch frame and match.
Higgins had been visibly emotional after his first-round win over youngster Jack Lisowski and, having also conquered Dave Harold, Matthew Stevens and Ali Carter, paid tribute to his father once more after tonight’s win.
“I don’t know what to say,” he said afterwards. “My mum and my wife are here with me and I’m sure Stephen will have a beer with us and we’ll toast the guy.”
On the match itself, he said: “I thought it was a fantastic final, he was outplaying me in all departments but I managed to make it 5-3 and keep myself in touching distance.
“I had to rely on Stephen missing a couple and I managed to dig in and clean up the frames.”
Maguire said: “All credit to him, he was 5-2 down today and just keeps clearing up — you need to finish the frame off or you know what’s coming back at you.
“I think I lost it in the first session, even though I was 5-3 up — when you have a player like John down you have to really stamp on him, but he came out and kept cleaning up.”
Maguire had opened his campaign with 4-2 wins over Gerard Greene and Stephen Hendry — despite a maximum from the latter — before beating Mark Williams 5-3 and battling past Mark Selby 6-5 to reach his first final since March 2008’s China Open win, during which time he had lost five semi-finals.
He said: “It’s my first final for a while, I’m just happy to be competing — even though I lost here I competed hard this week and maybe in the next tournament I’ll be better.”
Higgins added: “You can tell he’s getting back to his best form and it won’t be long before he wins another trophy.”