John Higgins (snooker player) title, which prompted Steve Davis to comment "I think John Higgins is the best snooker player I've ever seen in my life". Despite the victory, Higgins lost the world number one ranking to Mark Williams. Higgins had a poor 2011/2012 season, reaching only two quarter finals of major ranking events. His season-best performance was reaching the semi-finals of the Masters, where he lost 4–6 to Shaun Murphy. Before the start of his World Championship title defence, he admitted that his performance levels had not been good enough and that he had not been trying hard enough, managing just one or
2017 World Snooker Championship pair were level at 12 frames apiece, moving to 16–13 ahead. Needing just one frame to win, Selby would lose two frames to a resiliant Ding, before picking up a break of 72 to win the match. In the championships' other semifinal John Higgins qualified for his sixth World Championship final over a span of 19 years and his first in six years. He did so with a 17–8 victory over Barry Hawkins, which World Snooker referred to as a "demolition". The final, contested by Mark Selby and John Higgins, was a repeat fixture of the 2007 final which Higgins