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
2009 UK Championship (snooker) 2009 UK Championship (snooker) The 2009 Pukka Pies UK Championship was a professional ranking snooker tournament that took place between 5–13 December 2009 at the Telford International Centre in Telford, England. This was the first time that the UK Championship was sponsored by Pukka Pies, and thus the winning player also received his weight in the sponsor's product. Ding Junhui won in the final 10–8 against John Higgins. A controversial incident occurred in frame 13 of the semi final match between John Higgins and Ronnie O'Sullivan. In trying to escape from a snooker after Higgins had left him in among