JOHN HIGGINS admitted he would have rather been trounced by world No.1 Mark Selby, than go out of the Betway UK Snooker Championship in the manner he did.
The 41-year-old four-time world champion had his remarkable run of form brought to an end as he was beaten 6-5 yesterday afternoon in York in a marathon encounter.
It had all looked so simple for Selby early on as he sank breaks of 119, 63, and 67 to claim three lightning-fast opening frames in which Higgins only scored four points.
But rather than making it 4-0 at the interval, Selby finally blinked on a red to give Higgins a foothold, and after another slip on the pink he allowed the Scot to make it 3-2 and, suddenly, it was game on.
From there it was nip-and-tuck all the way to the finish, with the pair trading impressive breaks until Selby sank a long red to take the clash to a deciding frame at 5-5.
The final frame that swung like a pendulum. It lasted more than 45 minutes but while both players missed countless chances to strike the fatal blow, it was Higgins’ rest game that eventually let him down. He left Selby with a routine green to get in among the balls to seal a remarkable win.
“I don’t know what happened, I’m absolutely gutted,” he said. “I’d have rather Mark have gone on from the start he made and won 6-0, then I’d have been halfway back up the road already.
“Who cares that I took it to a decider? At the end of the day you can show fight and then still lose, so it’s still really gutting to lose a tough fight like that. The conditions were playing really tough with a lot of kicks and a lot of springy bounces, so it made it very difficult.”
Selby now moves on to play Shaun Murphy – who swept past Luca Brecel 6-1 in the afternoon's other match – in the semi-final, the fourth time in the last five years the world No.1 has made it to the UK Championship’s final four.
The Englishman said: “John’s obviously a class act, I’d put him in the top three all-time greats. His game is there, which he has proven in the last few weeks winning two tournaments.
“And he’s definitely going to be one of the favourites going into the world championships.”
Follow the UK Championship LIVE on Eurosport with Colin Murray, Jimmy White, Neal Foulds and Ronnie O’Sullivan.
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