Higgins shoots down Hawk
John Higgins produced a strong evening performance to book his Last 16 place in the Betfred.com World Championship at the Crucible.
Trailing 5-4 after the morning session, Higgins looked a changed player when the match resumed in the evening.
The defending Champion fired in 63 to level the match and then hit top gear with an imperious 121 to hit the front for the first time since the opening frame of the match.
From thereon it was hard to see any result other than a Higgins win. As the Scot grew strong, Hawkins game fell away.
Higgins powered on to an 8-5 lead, helped by another break of 67, before Hawkins briefly halted the charge for the line, winning a scrappy fourteenth frame on the colours.
A run of 114 to the pink took Higgins within a frame of victory and an early run of 44 in the next was enough to see the Scot over the line.
And very relieved he was too!
"I was happy to get out at only 5-4 behind this morning. I was a bag of nerves, I was all over the place", revealed the Champion.
"I knew I'd settle better tonight, you're involved in the match. I felt I could get in and win frames with a few good breaks."
"It wasn't just me who was nervous, it was a massive match for Barry too, so he'd have been feeling the pressure.
"I feel a lot better now. I know I can go on and play well now."
Higgins is due to face the winner of the match between six times Champion Steve Davis, and Mark King.
Higgins, who said he'd stay down in Sheffield and 'chill', will be cheering for a Davis victory.
"I'd love to play Steve here. It will be a sad day when he retires from the game. He's one of the modern greats of the sport. But Mark is a real scrapper so that will be a hard match.
"I have an apartment here and to be honest it's probably going to be more peaceful for me here than at home with the kids running round screaming!"
Hawkins was philosphical in defeat commenting "Before the match I'd have happily settled for 5-4 at the end of the first session.
"I felt calm enough going into tonight's session and I don't really know why it went wrong. I didn't really put John under enough pressure and he can sense that.
"He'll get strong then and raise his game. He made a couple of nice tons.
"It's hard to judge how my season's been. We've only had six events. I lost two first round matches so I can't be happy with that.
"We definitely want more events to play in, particularly more ranking events. Now we're hoping Barry [Hearn] will help to get the popularity back into the game and we'll get to have some good tournaments.
John Higgins agreed with that sentiment.
"Yes, we're all hoping now we'll be playing in a lot more tournaments. I won the Welsh, lost in China and that was all until today.
"I was thinking the other day that if I lost here today, under the old regime, I might not have played an event again until October."
Another former Champion, Stephen Hendry, carried a narrow 5-4 lead over Anda Zhang after their first session.
The seven times Champion opened a 4-0 lead as he piled the pressure on his teenage opponent and rattled in breaks of 60 and 73.
But Zhang has already been proved to have a 'never-say-die' attitude and he bounced back after the interval with runs of 83, 69 and 64 to close the gap to 4-3.
Hendry guaranteed his overnight lead by winning a low scoring eighth frame, but Zhang kept in touch, taking the ninth with a 46 break.
Joe Perry stormed into a 7-2 lead ver his good friend Michael Holt.
As usual Holt was a bag of nerves and the photographers had a field day capturing every tortured expression.
Perry pinched the opener with blue to black but Holt took the second in style with 112.
But the errors crept into Holt's game and Perry moved out to a 5-1 lead.
The fifth frame was probably pivotal to the outcome of the match. Holt was nicely set in the balls, on 64, but he missed and Perry stepped firmly on Holt's neck with a gritty 65 clearance.
The Chatteris cueman rattled in 62 in the next as well.
Holt made 47 to take a low scoring seventh frame, but he broke down on 38 in the next and Perry won it.
Perry then ran in 55 to secure his 7-2 overnight lead.
