Ding Ding Merrily on High
China's Ding Junhui confirmed his return to the top of the game with a determined victory over John Higgins in the final of the Pukka Pies UK Championship in Telford.
The match simmered at boiling point for much of the six and a half hour duration without ever exploding into a classic, but it was the Chinese Dragon that crossed the 'finish line' in first place to land his fourth ranking event title.
Junhui had fallen almost into obscurity over the past couple of seasons compared to the profile that winning his first three ranking titles as a teenager had afforded. However, the effects of 10-3 and 10-2 defeats inflicted by Ronnie O'Sullivan at the 2007 Masters and World Champinship seem to have finally been erased.
Higgins battled throughout the match but was clearly left wanting, possibly as a result of his efforts to see of O'Sullivan in their seventeen fram thriller on Saturday.
Despite losing, Higgins extends his lead at the top of the provisional world ranking list and is almost certain of regaining his number one spot at the end of the season.
He said, "I didn't play great today, but neither did Ding and I missed three balls in the last three or four frames that were just unfogiveable". When asked by 1991 world champion, John Parrott about his miss on the simplest of browns to lead eight-frames-to-seven, he quipeed "did I miss a brown?"
Junhui, who has moved up to sixth in the provisional rankings was obviously delighted to be back in the winner's circle and told Parrott, "It has been a crazy week. I have beaten four of the top five players, it is crazy."
For all the results from Telford click here...
