Neil Robertson today won his second ranking event in succession in China, after beating John Higgins 10-7 in the Wuxi Classic, once again showing his great break building and fighting qualities along the way.
Robertson made a decent start taking the first frame, but lost the next two as Higgins looked good early on with breaks of 78 and 56. A 91 levelled the scores at the Mid-session interval in the first session with a 91, but Higgins was playing just brilliantly and he threatened to take the game away from Robertson in the opening session. A couple of mistakes cost Robertson as Higgins made breaks of 70, 82 and 93 to take a 5-2 lead with 2 frames to go in the session. The way that Higgins was playing it looked like he would take at least a 6-3 lead into the final session, and Robertson would have been fearing a 7-2 deficit as it didn't look like Higgins could miss. However, the Aussie showed his true grit once again to take the next with a break of 52 to make it 5-3. In the last frame of the session he knocked in a long red and made a century (113) to make the score 5-4 to Higgins going into the final session. Robbo definetly would have felt the better at the end of the session, taking a 5-4 score line that really didn't look possible at one stage.
This feeling was taken into the final session, as Neil Robertson dominated Higgins and took full control of the final. Neil took all 4 frames before the mid-session interval, as Higgins only scored 58 points in those four frames and found himself 8-5 behind from 5-4 ahead. Breaks of 57 and 59 were just half of the story for Robertson as he shut Higgins out of the match. Finally Higgins could get a foot back in the door with a 66 to get the score back to 8-6. Robertson won the 15th though to go one away from victory at 9-6 and give John Higgins the almost impossible task. The Scot won a tight frame in the 16th to get 1 of the 4 he needed at 9-7, but Robertson sealed the match with a 65 to make him the 2013 Wuxi Classic Champion, with a 10-7 victory.
Neil Robertson was the deserved winner, finding the extra gear when it mattered most to get him through the tests that any player could throw at him over the course of the week. He scored well and battled hard when he had to and these were the 2 main components of his success.
Credit also has to go to John Higgins who continued his great start to the season, scoring well and playing a great tactical game as he always does when on form. This week also quashed talk of Higgins being past his best and proving to all of his critics that he can still mix it in the big events under pressure. It was also nice to see young players like Cao Yupeng and David Morris make it to the quarter-finals, causing some upsets along the way and playing some good snooker against the top players. This also showed us what the Flat 128 draw will give us over the whole course of the season, and hopefully giving some more young players the chance to shine on the big stage.
It is a while before the next snooker, roughly 2 weeks before the next event which is the Australian open and I will be back to preview that in good time, and hopefully with another fun piece in between.
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