SHEFFIELD (England), April 26: John Higgins’ defence of his World Snooker crown ended in bitter recriminations after a 13-9 second round defeat at the hands of Welshman Ryan Day on Saturday.
The Scot, who had built up leads of 4-0 and 6-3 on Friday, paid a heavy price after allowing Day to rally to 8-8 by the end of the first day’s play.
The defeat prompted an angry outburst from Higgins over the state of the table, which he felt should have been recovered before the start of the match.
“The cushions are totally unplayable,” he complained. “Let me stress, Ryan totally deserved to win and the conditions are for both players but it was a lottery whenever you were playing off any cushions.
“It’s really pretty pathetic that they are undermanned and can’t re-cover them until tonight but tonight is too late for the likes of myself.
“I don’t think the tournament director is doing is job correctly. We are not asking a lot, it should be easily fixed.”
Day agreed the conditions were not ideal but added: “I understand what John was saying but I just tried to get on with it.
“There’s not a lot you can do about it, we have all played on the same table. I think I dealt with it best.
“I don’t think it was all that bad and even a brand new cloth has bad bounces.”
Higgins was clearly out of sorts on Saturday morning and quickly lost the first three frames, even though Day’s highest break was just 49.
A break of 83 saw Higgins back to his fluent best and gave him renewed hope at the mid-session interval, but the 32-year-old still needed to win four of a possible five remaining frames to progress.
That never looked likely as Higgins continued to miss easy balls, and Day went 12-9 ahead with a break of 48.
Another break of 48 was ended by a missed red along the cushion but Higgins amazingly missed the easy opener he was left and Day sealed a shock victory and a quarter-final clash with either Stephen Hendry or Ding Junhui.
Another former champion, 2005 winner Shaun Murphy, was also in real trouble against Essex’s Ali Carter, Carter extending his 6-2 overnight lead to 9-3 at the mid-session interval.
—AFP
