Grand Prix 2008 – Final

Best of: 17
Ref.: Erian Willams
John Higgins – Rayan Day 9 – 7, 5 – 2

Framescores:
1. Session
77 – 39, 86 (85) – 47, 24 – 89 (64), 90 (57) – 0, 73 (52) – 4, 4 – 119 (82),
69 (65) – 21
2. Session
79 (62) – 4, 63 – 52 (52), 8 – 69 (69), 65 (49) – 74, 0 – 89 (89), 46 – 61 (39),
81 (50) – 11, 0 -83 (83) , 74 (53) – 36

John Higgins after the match:
“I suppose it’s vanity. A few years ago people talked about the big four of myself, Ronnie O’Sullivan, Stephen Hendry and Mark Williams. Now there are a lot of great new players and people say the big four is Ronnie, Mark Selby, Stephen Maguire and Shaun Murphy.
I still think I’m good enough to be in that group and I hope people will think of me that way now. It’s not nice when you fall away and people don’t expect you to win titles any more. I’m still only playing well in patches but winning one of the big BBC events should give me the confidence to go on and play better. My aim now is to go and win another one.
I couldn’t believe the scoreline when I was 7-2 up because I hadn’t played that well. I was lucky that Ryan had an off day, it was the worst he played all tournament. I knew at that stage he would let his arm go and come back at me.
I had a couple of great chances to go 8-3. I refused a pot on the yellow and put him back in a snooker, then he ended up hitting it and clearing up to win the frame. At that point I felt that I deserved to lose for not having the bottle to take on the yellow.
Then at 8-7 I didn’t get on a red off the black (on 53) and when he fluked a red I thought the balls weren’t going to forgive me. Luckily for me he missed and I got the balls I needed. I was absolutely delighted to win, it’s a great feeling.
I won a tournament after my first son Pierce was born and another for Oliver, so I didn’t want her to feel left out,. Maybe if I don’t win another one for a while we’ll have to get back to the bedroom!”

WSA – Blog:
There’s not much between John Higgins and Ryan Day according to the bookmakers. Higgins is 8/11 odds-on favourite while Day is even money. The shortest price scorelines are 9-7 and 9-8 to Higgins, both at 6-1.
The two most significant previous meetings between the two finalists have both come at the Crucible. Day lost 10-9 to Higgins on his Sheffield debut in 2004, despite becoming the first player to make three centuries on his debut at the famous venue. The Pontycymmer cueman gained revenge last season when he scored a 13-9 victory over Higgins in the last 16.
Higgins will move up from ninth to sixth if he wins, or seventh if he loses.
Journalist Neil Goulding bought John Higgins a packet of Monster Munch as an added victory bonus and presented the gift to the champion at his post-final press conference. However, on noticing that the crisps were Flaming Hot flavour rather than his prefered Roast Beef, Higgins declined and offered the packet to the remaining media. It was quickly snapped up by Phil Yates of the Times.

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