Emotional Higgins Storms Into Final
John Higgins struggled to hold back the tears after he reached the final of the Wyldecrest Parks Welsh Open with a commanding victory over Allister Carter at Newport Centre.
The Scot, playing in his first ranking tournament since the death of his father repeated his comprehensive win over Carter 12 months ago.
On Saturday afternoon, Carter made a good fist of the opening frames and went into the mid-session interval level with the defending champion and current world number one.
Carter hit a 118 break to kick things off but Higgins responded with runs of 76 and 69 before the break.
However, when play resumed, it was one-way traffic. Higgins making a 69 break in the fifth frame and a 56 in the next.
Two frames ahead became three when Higgins won a scrappy seventhd and then, as Carter's resistence broke, a couple of small breaks were enough to finish the 2009 Welsh champion off by 6-2.
Higgins dominence was evident in Carter's total score of just 23 points in those four frames, 11 of which were from fouls.
Higgins, who reached his 37th ranking tournament final and fifth in Wales will go for his 23rd ranking title on Sunday, was happy with his performance.
He said: "I was delighted to be 2-2 at the interval because Ali had chances to lead. After that, I played very solid snooker. I tried to force mistakes from Ali and managed to clear up a few times.
"His eye was in so I had to keep him under pressure.
"There were a few years where my worst (performances) were very bad and I wasn't competitng for titles. But, in the last three or four years, even my bad game has been difficult to beat.
"The tables we play on now are harder than they used to be, and I think to be doing well, you need to have a good all round game."
Carter had no complaints about the loss. He said: "John is the best player in the world. It's that simple. He has the best all round game and he gave me nothing today.
"People talk about Ronnie (O'Sullivan) and, on his game, he makes it look easy. But he's not on his game very much these days."
Higgins reached the Welsh final twice before winning it for a first time. He lost to legend Steve Davis 9-3 in 1995 and then to the late, Paul Hunter.
Eventually, Higgins lifted the trophy when he beat Trowbridge's Stephen Lee at the Cardiff International Arena in 2000, winning 9-8 among the tensest of finishes.
But he had to wait a whole decade before being crowned Welsh champion for a second time with last year's victory over Carter. Back-to-back Welsh wins will make him only the third players in the tournament's history - Davis and O'Sullivan being the others - to take the title two years in a row.
Higgins extends his lead at the head of the rankings and has not lost in major ranking competition since returning from a sixth month ban last November for bringing the game into disrepute following allegations by the News of the World for match fixing, a claim for which he was later cleared.
