Players Championship Snooker 2022: John Higgins beats Hossein Vafaei to advance to the quarter-finals
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Updated 09/02/2022 at 17:21 GMT
John Higgins saw off Iran's Hossein Vafaei 6-3 to advance to the quarter-finals. Higgins rattled off three fine century breaks as he eventually got the upper hand in a tight encounter. Meanwhile Jimmy Robertson eased to a 6-1 victory over Luca Brecel to book his place in the last eight and a match against Higgins. The final of the event takes place on Sunday.
John Higgins
Image credit: Getty Images
John Higgins booked his place in the quarter-finals of the Players Championship after seeing off Hossein Vafaei 6-3.
Higgins will face Jimmy Robertson in the last eight after he overcame Luca Brecel 6-1.
Vafaei raced into a 2-0 lead after a Higgins mistake in the opening frame of the afternoon, before dominating the second frame with a couple of impressive breaks.
Higgins got on the board in the third frame after Vafaei let him in with an error, before levelling up with frame four as he began to find the form he has been showing this season.
The Scot's increasing dominance didn't bode well for his Iranian opponent, and those fears were only compounded shortly afterwards as Higgins knocked home a superlative break of 134 to take the lead in the match for the first time.
It looked like Higgins might race away with proceedings thereafter but Vafaei clawed his way back into the encounter, compiling a break of 49 to pull level at 3-3.
The see-sawing continued in the next frame, however, as Higgins rattled off his second century of the match, a high-quality clearance that was built upon a missed blue from Vafaei.
As the eighth frame began the theme of Vafaei missing and Higgins capitalising was once more apparent, with the Iranian this time failing to sink a pottable red and leaving his increasingly fluent opponent in the balls.
From there Higgins knocked off a break of 108 – his now third ton of the match – to take an iron grip on the contest.
He breezed through the final frame to secure victory, with his opponent applauding him magnanimously at the conclusion of the match.
On the other table, Robertson was busying demolishing Luca Brecel.
The pair shared the opening two frames but, from then on, it was one-way traffic with Robertson taking the next five frames to advance to the last eight.
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