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 Champion of Champions from the 2016 Champion of Champions to the 2017 International Championship, thereby including tournaments from both the 2016/2017 and 2017/2018 snooker seasons. The tournaments have been split into groups to determine the order of qualification, with the winners of the first sixteen listed tournaments guaranteed a place. The following players qualified for the tournament: Total: 20 2017 Champion of Champions The 2017 188BET Champion of Champions was a professional non-ranking snooker tournament taking place between 6–12 November 2017 at the Ricoh Arena in Coventry, England. John Higgins was the defending champion, but was whitewashed by Ronnie O'Sullivan in the second