Scottish Open: John Higgins on the march in Glasgow

The world No.5 played some dazzling stuff against Jack Lisowski in the first round at Glasgow’s Emirates Arena and continued in that vein in the second – beating Christopher Keogan 4-1 in a ruthless display.

There was plenty of Scottish representation elsewhere on day three with Glasgow’s Alan McManus knocked out by David Grace and Perth’s Scott Donaldson defeated by Michael White – whilst Wishaw youngster Chris Totten delivered an excellent victory over Mitchell Mann.

Higgins started his match against Keogan with a break of 144, followed up by a 138-break and, after losing the third frame, he made breaks of 108 and 85, leaving his younger opponent with little chance.

“I have got a decent feeling because obviously from last year I had a pretty good feeling,’’ said Higgins. 

“But I was probably playing better and coming into it in a better frame of mind, and that’s maybe why I did get to the final [Higgins lost the 2016 final to Marco Fu] and close to winning it.

“You can sometimes go to venues and have a decent feeling and I’m hoping it’s this one for me.

“You can’t play any better than that, everybody gets chances in matches and Christopher [Keogan] had a chance to make it two each but apart from that he never really did too much wrong.

“He’s probably going home tonight thinking ‘what happened there,
I didn’t really get much of a chance’.”

Higgins will take on Gerard Greene in round three today after the Northern Irishman came through 4-3 against Mike Dunn.

The Wizard of Wishaw also singled out Chris Totten for praise after the 19-year-old completed two upsets in two rounds by beating England’s Mann 4-3.

“He’s been brilliant,” Higgins said of Totten. “He’s through to the last 32 and that’s another few pounds as well which is great for him, who knows what he can do.

“It’s one of those things where obviously the match he had against me in the UK, although he lost he’s maybe picked something up from that and he’s taken it on to this tournament.

“It’s all about learning at that age, learning from the older players and trying to be like a sponge, if you can do that you’re going to do well.”
Totten is ranked 122 in the world and was expected to find it tough going against Mann, but the youngster had also surprisingly beaten Wales’ Sam Baird in the first round on Monday and is looking in good shape.

Meanwhile, Scott Donaldson was disappointed with his 4-2 defeat to Wales’ Michael White but, in a pleasing show of solidarity amongst Scottish players, he’s also getting excited about Totten.

“I’ll be back here to watch,” said Donaldson. “I’ll probably come tomorrow because I think Chris Totten will be on, he had a great win today so I’ll try and support him.

“He deserves that win because he’s a great player, hopefully he can go much further.”

Totten’s more experienced compatriot Alan McManus won’t be joining him in the third round though after going down 4-3 to David Grace – leaving the world No.30 disappointed in front of his home crowd.

“I’ve paid the price for a lack of preparation in this tournament, I had no long game,” said McManus.

“On the balls I was alright and I should have still won the match but the balls don’t forgive you. 

“I took my eye off one ball and that’s the only one I missed, but the game doesn’t forgive you so I’m disappointed.

“I won’t be sticking around because I’m not a great watcher to be honest but I’ll get some practice in now, I didn’t play an awful lot last week and I actually felt alright in my game.

“I played the better stuff but I didn’t win – that happens in snooker.”
World No.18 Steven Maguire plays later on day three, against Pakistan’s Hamza Akbar.

Eden Sharav also gets the chance to cause a second Scottish upset of the day – Sharav is ranked 105 in the world and takes on Michael Holt of England.

Watch the Scottish Open LIVE on Eurosport, Eurosport Player and Quest with Andy Goldstein and analysis from Jimmy White and Neal Foulds