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 Ali Carter 10–7 in a tense encounter to reach the last 16. 2010 champion Neil Robertson made his 500th career century during his 10–4 first round win over Noppon Saengkham of Thailand. Stuart Carrington became only the fifth player, after John Higgins, Ronnie O'Sullivan, Mark Selby and Neil Robertson to make century breaks in 3 consecutive frames in a World Championship match during his encounter with Liang Wenbo; however, Liang won the match 10–7. In total, 7 former world champions qualified for the last 16: Selby, Bingham, O'Sullivan, Higgins, Robertson, Dott and Murphy. Ebdon was the only former champion in