Scotland’s John Higgins proceeds into Round 2 after beating China’s Liang Wenbo: 2012 Welsh Open
Defending champion, Scotland’s John Higgins grabbed an easy victory over Chinese potter, Liang Wenbo in the first round of 2012 Welsh Open at the Newport Centre in Newport, Wales. A stunning display of convincing snooker skills from the reigning World Snooker
Champion took him three frames up at 4-1 against the Chinese cueist.
The Wizard of Wishaw is now in a strong position in the line-up and is looking forward to start his bid for claiming his third straight Welsh Open title. The Scotsman compiled some excellent clearances of 58, 78 and 55 to click his first-round match win.
Wenbo, on the other hand looked good in the beginning of the match when he moved within one frame up at 2-1 but after that, he was not able to add more frames to his side of the score board. The 36-year-old Higgins was quite happy after winning the match
and said that he wanted to collect some good memories out of the tournament.
While speaking to World Snooker after his match, Higgins said, “It was looking good at 2-0, then he made a great clearance to go 2-1 and that could have changed the match. I'm trying to draw on the good memories I have here from the last couple of years.
I am putting the effort in and I hope things turn around.”
The Lanarkshire potter will next meet another Chinese, Ding Junhui in the second round. Higgins believes that Junhui is one of the toughest opponents to have in the second round of any major ranking tournament.
The four-time World Snooker Champion added, “If I'm brutally honest, I have not put enough work in over the last few months, so I have got to do that now. Ding is out of the top eight and that shows you the strength in depth of the top 16. You can get the
likes of Ding, Stephen Maguire and Ronnie O'Sullivan in the second round.”
Both Higgins and Junhui have faced each other several times in previous seasons. They met each other last time in the final of 2009 UK Championship where Junhui defeated Higgins by the score line of 10-8.
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