John Higgins won the Totesport.com Welsh Open yesterday, a win that further cements his place at the top of the World Snooker provisional rankings. The Scotsman, the reigning World Champion, now sits a colossal 9505 points in front of Ronnie O’Sullivan in second after having amassed 31000 points so far this season.
Last years Welsh Open winner, Ali Carter, started very strongly yesterday in the defence of his title. The 2009 Welsh Open was Carter’s first ever world ranking crown and after a mixed year he will be doing his utmost to secure back-to-back Welsh titles.
Ronnie O’Sullivan certainly set out his intentions at this weeks Welsh Open, he demolished some time practice partner Stuart Bingham 5-1 to set up a second tie with either Ding Junhui or Jamie Cope.
The Rocket, who lost a tense Masters final earlier in January, is the tournament favourite and with a performance like todays certainly looks in the right frame of mind to win another Welsh Open title.
Today is the final qualifying round of the Welsh Open snooker tournament, later on we will found out which 16 players will join the games elite at the Newport Centre in Newport next week.