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Andrew Higginson

The 2008/09 season saw Higginson return to the form that he displayed two years earlier.
He qualified for the televised stages of four tournaments, including a debut at the Betfred.com World Championship.
His season started with wins over Li Hang and Anthony Hamilton at the Northern Ireland Trophy but he lost out to Mark Selby 5-1 in Belfast.
That was followed by qualification for the Grand Prix, but again he met Selby in the opening round, this time the match ended in a 5-0 defeat.
The Widnes player did qualify for the second biggest ranking event, the UK Championship. In his first round encounter with Peter Ebdon he was never behind but saw the former World Champion level at 8-8 before going on to take the decider.
Higginson finished his campaign strongly, wins over Jamie Jones and Michael Judge enabled him to reach the last 32 of the world’s biggest tournament for the first time. He gave Shaun Murphy a tough match but eventually lost 10-8 but was bouyed by the experience of it.
"It’s what we all dream of. Having watched clips of all the players who have been there down the years, and then to walk through that little corridor into the arena, with all the lights shining, it was brilliant. It was everything I expected and more. But I was disappointed with my match against Shaun Murphy - even though the 10-8 scoreline suggests it was close, it was an awful match. He was just a bit less bad than me," he said. 
He’ll start the 2009/10 season at No 33 in the one year list and will set his sights on securing a top 32 place for the first time in his career.
Higginson surpassed all his previous best efforts in 2006/07 and jumped to 24th in the provisional rankings.
His outstanding campaign included a run to the last 16 of the Malta Cup. The Widnes cueman scored victories in the qualifiers over Jamie Jones, Shokat Ali, Jimmy White and David Gray to book his flight to the Mediterranean island. A wildcard win over Simon Zammit and a 5-4 defeat of Steve Davis took him to the last 16 where went down 5-2 to the defending champion, Ken Doherty.
At the time that was Higginson’s best ranking performance, but he was soon to go much further. The Welsh Open followed and having seen off Passakorn Suwannawat, Scott MacKenzie and Drew Henry to get to Newport, the 29-year-old was in fine form. A 5-2 first round victory over Marco Fu was followed by wins against John Higgins and Michael Judge to surpass his achievement in Malta and reach his first ranking event quarter-final.
An emphatic 5-1 victory over Ali Carter, including a maximum in frame two that earnt him a cool £22,000, was succeeded by a semi-final win over Stephen Maguire and a first final appearance against Neil Robertson.
A 500-1 outsider at the beginning of the tournament, Higginson had a slow start and trailed 6-2 but remarkably recovered to lead 8-6. But his brilliant run finished in anti-climax as Robertson recovered to take the last three frames.
"When I got to 8-6 I thought this is my time. Then he made a couple of great breaks to go 8-8. In a decider it’s anyone’s," said Higginson. "It’s been the best week of my life and I’m climbing up the rankings which is brilliant. I have always known I am good enough, I just needed a run like this to get me going. I want it to continue."
Higginson, twice North West Champion in his amateur days, was based at Widnes Snooker Centre until it burnt down in 2000.
The Liverpool FC fan regained a place on the Tour by finishing second on the 2005/06 Pontin’s International Open Series. He won the last of eight events, beating Jamie O’Neill 6-3 in the final.

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