Jamie Cope hoping to beat John Higgins in second round of 2012 World Open
England’s Jamie Cope defeated Martin Gould by 5-4 in the first round of 2012 Haikou World Open snooker tournament to set up second round clash against the World Snooker Champion, John Higgins.
The Englishman has played Higgins a few times but in all those matches, he was not able to win a single contest. However, this time, he is feeling confident of playing Higgins and hopes that he will be at the baize in quarter-finals of 2012 World Open at
the Haikou Stadium arena in Hainan Island.
After winning his first match against Gould, Cope spoke to the media, “It's always a hard test when you play someone like John, he's a great player. I've played him a few times and should have probably beaten him at the World Championship a few years ago,
but he did well to win that match.”
He added, “But I'm feeling confident and better about my game. I'll have to play better, though, if I'm going to beat John. Hopefully I can get into the quarter-finals.”
The clash might be another upset because so far the spectators around the world have witnessed a couple of major upsets in the opening round. The young Chinese potter, Jin Long ousted the 2012 Welsh Open winner, compatriot Ding Junhui by 5-1, while the qualifier
Mark King trashed the Welsh Potting Machine, Mark Williams with the same score line.
Meanwhile, as per head-to-head stats, Cope has never won a single match against the Scotsman. They faced each other for the first time in the second round of 2009 World Snooker Champion where Higgins overpowered him by 13-12.
In the previous season, they met in the round-robin clash of 2011 Championship League Snooker Group 2 where the Wizard of Wishaw whitewashed Cope by 3-0.
The last match they played was the final game of 2011 Hainan Classic a year ago. The 36-year-old Higgins prevailed in this match too with the score line of 7-2.
The odds are clearly favouring the Scotsman and Cope’s chances to win over him seem less. However, the World Number 23 is still confident to oust Higgins who surged into the second round after beating Hong Kong’s Marco Fu.
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