John Higgins has got back the winning feeling this season and will be hoping he can translate it into World Championship glory.
The Wizard of Wishaw has already added two ranking titles to his impressive career haul in this campaign and his recent victory at the Championship League ensures that winning remains a habit as we bear down on The Crucible.
This win makes Higgins the first ever player to successfully defend the Championship League title and his bid was absolutely textbook.
He joined the event in Group 7 at the start of the week, came through the round robin and beat Judd Trump in the final. He then continued his run straight into the Winner’s Group and lifted the trophy with a 3-2 victory against Zhou Yuelong.
The Scot was quick to admit that he rode his luck at times this week, but he played very well throughout and ends the week with £21,700 of prize money and another tournament win in the bag.
The class of 1992 trio of Higgins, Mark Williams and Ronnie O’Sullivan have now won 10 pieces of silverware between them this season in a campaign where they have rubberstamped their greatness even further for their ability to have such longevity winning titles.
All three of them have very legitimate chances of winning this year’s World Championship and while this ambition has never gone away for O’Sullivan, you get the real feeling that Higgins is winning back his belief with his results this season.
After winning at the Indian Open earlier in the season, he told the press he was happy to keep winning some of the smaller titles but the more he has competed at the top this season, the more he seems to be warming to his chances of winning a fifth world title.
Higgins wasn’t given much of a chance going into Sheffield a year ago and still made it through to the final. He’s playing even better now than he was back then and has talked about things he’s doing off the table to try to give him that extra edge.
Higgins is most definitely in a small cluster of players capable of winning at the World Championship this year and while all the talk is of O’Sullivan levelling with Steve Davis on six, you certainly can’t rule out Higgins winning a fifth to draw level with Ronnie.
