Player Profile  John Higgins MBE Born: 18 May 1975. Wishaw, Lanarkshire, Scotland Turned Professional: 1992 Highest Break: 147 (Five occasions) Career Centuries 416 (to end of 2008/9 season) Highest Ranking 1st (1998/9, 1999/00, 2007/8 John Higgins joined the professional ranks in 1992 alongside two other players who have proved to be his main rivals ever since, Ronnie O’Sullivan and Mark Williams. Previously John had beaten Mark to win the junior title at the 1991 Mita World Masters but lost to him in the final of the British under-16 championship.   Although he managed to reach the last sixteen of the Grand Prix, his other results in that first season were only modest and he could only achieve a ranking of 122. Slightly better results in 1993/94 took him up to 51st but there were little signs of what was to about to happen.   Whatever John did before the start of the next season certainly seemed to have worked for in only the second event, the Grand Prix, he beat Dave Harold 9-6 to take his first title. Not content with that he beat Steve Davis to win the International Open and followed that with victory over Ronnie O’Sullivan to take the British Open as well. Three ranking titles in a season are rare enough but for someone ranked only 51st it was nothing short of sensational, especially when you add runner up in the Regal Welsh and the Benson & Hedges Masters, as well as a first visit to the Crucible. John had spectacularly jumped to eleventh in the rankings.   In 1995/96 the success continued and in only two ranking events did he fail to reach at least the quarter-finals. He retained his International Open title and added the German Open finishing runner up in the Grand Prix and British Open. The season ended with a quarter-final in the world championships and in other events he was runner-up in both the Malta Grand Prix and the Charity Challenge. He was now up to second in the world rankings. The next season saw the revival of the World Cup and John, with his colleagues Stephen Hendry and Alan McManus, took the title in Bangkok. On the ranking circuit only one title was added to the collection, the European Open, but John was runner-up in the UK with two other semi-final spots and another world quarter-final to consolidate his second place in the rankings.   He featured in no less that eight major finals in 1997/98, six of them ranking events. He was runner-up in the Grand Prix and the Malta Grand Prix, and after a failure in the UK, took the German Open title for a second time. He followed this with another runner-up in the Regal Welsh before collecting the non-ranking Charity Challenge title. He then lost in the Scottish Open final before collecting the British Open title on his way to the Crucible. He had not previously progressed beyond the quarter-finals but he knew that there was an outside chance he could get to number one in the rankings. To achieve this, not only did he have to win the world title, but also Hendry would need to lose in the first round. Well Jimmy White obliged by putting Stephen out of the running and John did the rest. A comfortable 18-12 victory over holder, Ken Doherty saw him World Champion and world number one.   1998/99 saw him collect the UK title and he also won the Benson & Hedges Masters as well to hold the three biggest titles in snooker at the same time. The China International also came his way and he reached the semi-finals at the Crucible in the defence of his world championship. He comfortably retained his number one ranking position and, for good measure, added the Premier League title and a second Charity Challenge as well. In 1999/2000 he took a second Grand Prix title as well as the Welsh Open for the first time and semi-finals came in both the world and UK championships. About the only thing left for John was an elusive 147 maximum but that came as well in the Nations Cup and, to prove it was no fluke, he did it again a few weeks later on the way to winning the Benson & Hedges Irish Masters. Brilliant season though it was, Mark Williams had a better one and John lost his number one ranking position to the Welshman.   In 2000/01, John trounced Mark Williams in the UK Championship final at Bournemouth but had to pull out of the Grand Prix to attend a wedding. He helped Scotland clinch the Nations Cup and solid if unspectacular results followed but at Sheffield his form looked good and he went all the way to the final. There however he came up against Ronnie O’Sullivan in unstoppable form and he had to settle for the runners-up cheque. The result also meant that Ronnie had pushed him another place down the rankings to third.   The 2001/12 season started sensationally with John winning the opening three events, Champions Cup, Regal Masters and British Open. He followed this with four more ranking quarter finals and one semi and then added the Irish Masers title for the second time in three years. When he also reached the quarter finals of the world championship, he had only failed to reach the last eight in three events throughout the season. Despite this he dropped down a further place in the ranking list to fourth.   By John’s high standards, 2002/3 was a poor one and he failed to win a title for the first time for nine seasons, his best being runner up in the Irish Masters. Nevertheless he retained fourth place in the rankings. Amazingly he again failed to win anything the following season, runner up in the LG Cup being his best, and he fell to 5th, his lowest for nine seasons.   John began 2004/5 by recording his fifth 147 break in the Grand Prix but he still failed to win a match but at last his drought ended when he took the British Open title a few weeks later. For him the rest of the season offered nothing special and he dropped yet another place in the rankings. He started the next season in great style taking the Grand Prix title. In the final against Ronnie O’Sullivan he gave one of the greatest performances ever seen. He set a new record for unanswered points for any professional event of 494 and made four centuries in four frames, the first player to do so in a single match. He also won the Masters with a dramatic final frame win over O’Sullivan again. He lost in the final of both the Malta Cup and China Open but was back to 4th in the rankings.   In 2006/7 he was again a bit inconsistent with some first round exits but the season ended on a real high as he won the 888.com World Championship for the second time and returned to the number one position in the rankings. The following campaign was disappointing for, although he won a pre-season invitation event in Hong Kong, he failed to get beyond the quarter finals in any ranking event and fell back again to 5th.   In the 2008/9 season, in co-operation with his management company, he established a series of events throughout Europe known as the World Series of Snooker. In each event four local players would meet four top professionals in the first round. The top players over the whole series would meet in a grand final.  John won two of these events himself and on the ranking circuit he won a fourth Grand Prix title and climaxed the season with his third world championship.   John has won every major title in the game and almost £5 million in prize money. Only Stephen Hendry, Steve Davis and O’Sullivan have won more than his twenty ranking titles placing him among the most prolific winners in the modern game. He has also made over 400 centuries.      Career Highlights World Professional Snooker Champion 1998, 2007, 2009 World Professional Snooker Championship Runner up 2001 UK Championship winner 1998, 2000 Grand Prix champion 1994, 1999, 2004, 2009 International Open champion 1995, 1996 British Open champion 1995, 1998, 2001, 2004 German Open champion 1995, 1997 European Open champion 1997 China Open champion 1999 Welsh Open champion 2000 Masters champion 1999, 2006 Irish Masters champion 2000, 2002 Scottish Masters champion 2001 Charity Challenge champion 1998, 1999 Premier League champion 1999 Champions Cup champion 2001 Euro-Asia Masters Challenge champion 2007 World Series of Snooker event winner 2008/9 (twice) World Cup winner 1996 (Scotland Team) Nations Cup winner 2001 (Scotland Team)   © Chris Turner 2009 Back to top