Bulgarian Open



John Higgins, with new cue, secured his first tournament
win since last season's fourth UK PTC event in November

John Higgins secured the first tournament of the 2013/14 season as he romped to victory in the Bulgaria Open, beating Neil Robertson in the final. The Scot was armed with a new cue after a disappointing end to his World Championship when he lost out to Mark Davis in the opening round, and had clearly put a lot of practice in for the event and looked very dangerous during the whole tournament.

Robertson started the final well and looked at ease, knocking in a top break of 63 to take the opening frame. But Higgins fought back in style with some confident break building, compiling runs of 60, 73, 118 and 82 to secure the title he missed out to against Judd Trump last season.

The win secures him the top prize of €25,000, which has more than doubled from €12,000 for the winner’s pot in the European Tour events last year. More importantly, it should give him some much needed confidence going into the first major raking event, the Wuxi Classic, in a weeks’ time.

He earlier defeated Ronnie O’Sullivan in the semi-finals after coming back from 2-0 down to win 4-2. O’Sullivan, playing his first competitive snooker since lifting the World Championship title at the Crucible, looked comfortable after hitting breaks of 55 and 56 to take the first two frames but the turning point came in the third frame.

The Rocket seemed on course to take it on the colours but was unlucky to cannon in the black after potting the blue, allowing Higgins to knock in the blue and pink to pinch it. Higgins didn’t look back from there and made breaks of 93, 55 and 76 in the next three to book his place in the final.

There was an even bigger comeback on the other table as Robertson came from 3-0 down to beat Barry Hawkins 4-3. A top run of 82 helped the World Championship runner-up cruise to a 3-0 lead but Robertson hit back and made breaks of 106, 75 and 105 in the final four frames, with Hawkins only scoring 13 in reply over those frames.

Robertson had showed his break-building prowess during his 4-2 quarter-final victory over namesake Jimmy Robertson, hitting top runs of 111 and 105. The Aussie, who recently hit a 147 maximum break in the Wuxi Classic qualifiers, finished the tournament with the most centuries, compiling seven in as many games.

Barry Hawkins had beaten up-and-coming Scottish player Scott Donaldson 4-1 in his quarter, the highlight being Hawkins’ 123 in the fourth. Donaldson had earlier recorded an excellent 4-1 victory of his own over Matthew Stevens in the last 16. O’Sullivan smashed Mark Williams 4-0 in his quarter whilst Higgins had defeated Irishman Fergal O’Brien 4-2.

The next action comes from Yixing in the Asian Tour event which precedes the Wuxi Classic. Higgins is one of the majority of players that have qualified for Wuxi who will be appearing in the event which begins on Tuesday and concludes Saturday.