A Year of Peaks: Titles That Reset the Narrative
The headline is simple: Higgins collected two major pieces of silverware in 2025, reigniting the age-old debate about experience versus youth. First came the World Open in Yushan, where he beat Joe O’Connor 10–6 in a controlled, mature performance that oozed matchcraft and patience.
Then, in April, he lifted the Tour Championship after a gripping 10–8 victory over Mark Selby—an opponent who forces you to earn every inch on the table. That week was vintage Higgins: intelligent safety, relentless scoring when the chance came, and the poise to win tight frames late in sessions. Those wins didn’t just add to his trophy cabinet; they replenished ranking points and belief.
Crucible Campaign: A Classic Quarter-Final Exit with Lessons
At the World Championship, Higgins reminded everyone why his name still carries weight in Sheffield. After negotiating a tricky opening tie that began 4–4 with Xiao Guodong, he settled in and played his way into the tournament. The run ended in the quarter-finals in a deciding frame against friend and rival Mark Williams, 13–12.
The scoreline told the story of a razor-thin margin; it also hinted at how healthy the top tier remains when the Class of ’92 collide. Even in defeat, the Crucible showed that the foundation stones of his game—cue-ball control, percentage choices, and temperament—remain intact.
Late-Summer Form: From Wuhan to Xi’an
Fast-forward to the China swing, and the picture is nuanced but promising. Higgins reached the quarter-finals in Wuhan, falling to a red-hot Gary Wilson who has quietly become one of the most reliable match players on tour. Days later came a sting in Leicester at the Xi’an Open qualifiers, where teenage talent Liam Pullen edged him 4–2.
Upsets happen—especially in early-round best-of-7s—but the broader takeaway is that Higgins remains in the mix most weeks, stringing together deep runs and banking point hauls that keep him seeded where it matters.
Ranking Reality Check: Why No. 6 Still Feels Dangerous
The official two-year list has Higgins in the top six, a sweet spot that avoids early collisions with the very top seeds while keeping him on the right side of main-draw traffic. Prize-money tables also tell the tale: steady quarter-finals and semi-finals, punctuated by title spikes, keep his rolling total robust.
For opponents, a seeded Higgins means fewer freebies in their quarter and a greater chance of running headfirst into a tactical master on TV tables. For Higgins, it buys time—time to settle into an event, feel the conditions, and lean on experience when a session turns scrappy.
Numbers That Matter: 33 Titles, 13 Maximums, 1,000+ Centuries
Context elevates any current run. Higgins’ 33 ranking titles put him third all-time behind only O’Sullivan and Hendry. His 13 official maximums reflect not just flair but clinical break-building under pressure. Most emblematic is the career-century milestone: he crossed the 1,000 barrier last season and continues to add to a tally north of 1,000 with the same velvet cueing that defined his peak years.
These are not museum pieces; they inform opponents’ shot selection in real time. Everyone knows that a half-chance left on the table against Higgins is liable to become a frame.
How the 50-Year-Old Version Wins
What separates the present-day Higgins from the 20-something prodigy is economy. The angles are the same; the choices are cleaner. He’s mixing mid-range containment with precise, risk-managed potting that starves opponents of rhythm. In long matches, he reminds you that snooker is a resource game: energy, time, concentration.
He spends those resources wisely, resisting the temptation to force recovery pots when a lock-tight safety will kneecap the frame just as effectively. The result is fewer wild swings, more scoreboard pressure, and a steady drip of frames that suffocate comebacks.
Mental Toughness: Bouncing Back from the Gut-Punches
The 2025 Masters served up a reminder that even legends take emotional body blows. After a bruising loss to Neil Robertson, Higgins admitted the defeat “takes your soul.” Many players dwell; he reset. That reset powered the spring title run and his most consistent stretch in years.
The pattern is instructive: when setbacks arrive, he shortens his backswing metaphorically—tightening routines, simplifying table patterns, and stripping the game down to controllables. It’s a champion’s habit that has extended his lifespan at the top.
Rivalries, Respect, and the Class of ’92
Place him next to Ronnie O’Sullivan and Mark Williams and you see the three pillars of an era that refuses to crumble. Higgins’ rivalry with Selby offers the newer template: two tactical giants turning frames into chess problems, then finishing them with scalpel-clean breaks. Against the younger wave, he becomes a measuring stick for how new-school aggression copes with old-school percentage play.
Whether it’s a Chinese teenager with fearless cue power or a hardened tour pro riding a purple patch, Higgins bends matches toward structure and asks hard questions over four visits instead of one.
Health, Fitness, and the Small Edges
Turning 50 in a sport that punishes lapses in focus is no small thing. Higgins has quietly invested in the small edges: recovery windows between sessions, better sleep rhythms on travel weeks, and practice blocks crafted for maintenance rather than reinvention. On table, that translates into fewer loose cue-ball leaves at the end of long visits and a steadier hand when clearing to the colors after long safety duels.
The margins that win quarter-finals in Wuhan and keep you seeded for the UK swing are often invisible on the broadcast; they show up on Sunday night when you’re still playing.
Where the Season Goes from Here
The calendar offers both risk and opportunity. Shorter qualifiers can flip in ten minutes, as Leicester just proved, but the bigger Chinese events and the UK swing give Higgins the multi-session canvases he prefers. If the scoring holds and the safety remains weaponized, he’ll arrive at the Players- and Tour-level events as a dark-horse favorite at worst.
For anyone tracking form lines and seedings, this is the simple equation: keep John Higgins in the top six through winter and he’s two good sessions from every final he enters.
One Source, Many Stories
If you want the official schedule snapshots, draws, and post-match reports that underpin this season’s story, start with the governing body’s news hub at World Snooker Tour. From there, each event page links to orders of play, match stats, and rankings updates that track Higgins’ position week by week. It’s the cleanest way to place any single upset—or surge—into the bigger picture of his campaign.
Legacy, Updated
Legacy for a player like Higgins is a living thing. The four world titles, the 33 ranking trophies, the triple-crown nine—those are fixed. But every time he threads a plant under pressure or bleeds a frame dry with two monstrous safeties and a 54 clearance, the legacy refreshes itself.
That’s why opponents still guard frames so jealously against him; that’s why fans still lean forward when his name hits the arena PA. In 2025, the Wizard of Wishaw remains a threat in any half of any draw. He’s earned the right to be judged by the highest standard—and, on current evidence, he still meets it more often than not.
