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
2001 UK Championship (snooker) 2001 UK Championship (snooker) The 2001 UK Championship was a professional ranking snooker tournament that took place at the Barbican Centre in York, England. The event started on 3 December 2001 and the televised stages were shown on BBC between 8 and 16 December 2001. John Higgins was the defending champion, but he lost his quarter-final match against Stephen Lee. Ronnie O'Sullivan won his third UK title by defeating Ken Doherty 10–1 in the final. This was the biggest win in the final since the championship introduced the best-of-19-frame finals in 1993. He also compiled the highest break, a 142,