JOHN HIGGINS is relishing the prospect of a tartan tussle on Thursday after booking his place in the third round of the English Open in Manchester.
Higgins produced a largely efficient display to see off Mark King 4-1 at EventCity and will now face Fraser Patrick, after the Glaswegian overcame veteran James Wattana 4-2.
Higgins and Patrick are regular practice partners and after following his 4-2 victory in the first round with another triumph, the 41-year-old claims he is feeling his way into the event perfectly.
“With these 128 draws and needing to win seven matches to win an event, you can really play your way into a tournament if you can get through the first couple of rounds,” said Higgins.
“In the 32-man events where you’ve only got five matches, you come up against real tough opponents right away and if you’re not on your game, you’re going home.
“I’ve practised a lot with Fraser and it will be funny playing him in a match. It’s good to see him doing well but I hope he doesn’t go any further!
“I’m sure he’s looking forward to playing someone he might have looked up to over the years but I’ll have to try my best to slap him down!”
Meanwhile, there were second-round defeats for Ross Muir and Scott Donaldson on Wednesday as they lost out to Fergal O’Brien and Mark Allen respectively.
And there was no better luck for Stephen Maguire as the Glaswegian made two centuries and an 80 break but still went down 4-3 to Ryan Day after missing what would have been a match-clinching green in the deciding frame.
Watch the English Open LIVE on Eurosport 1 and Quest, featuring daily studio analysis from Ronnie O’Sullivan, Jimmy White and Neal Foulds.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here