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
1977 World Snooker Championship 1977 World Snooker Championship The 1977 World Snooker Championship (also known as the 1977 Embassy World Snooker Championship for the purposes of sponsorship) was a professional ranking snooker tournament that took place between 18 and 30 April 1977 at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield. John Spencer won in the final 25–21 against Cliff Thorburn. The event was sponsored by cigarette manufacturer Embassy. Spencer at aged 41 was the oldest Crucible champion until Ray Reardon won the 1978 Championship aged 45. The breakdown of prize money for this year is shown below: Numbers in (parentheses) indicate seedings. Sources: Source: There were