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
2016 World Snooker Championship tournament broadcasters, the BBC. He received a formal warning from World Snooker, and was advised that further breaches of contract would lead to fines. Following losses by Bingham, Murphy, Ebdon, and Dott, Neil Robertson became the fifth former champion to exit in the first round when Michael Holt defeated him 10–6. This meant that O'Sullivan, Selby, Williams, and Higgins were the only former winners to reach the second round. Both Alan McManus and Ding Junhui advanced to the quarterfinals by beating the opponents who had knocked them out the year before. McManus won 13–11 over Carter, who beat him 10–5