John Higgins reached the semi-finals of the 2026 Players Championship on Thursday – a day after he dipped his toes into broadcasting for 5.
The Scot was on both commentary and punditry duties on Wednesday as the new host broadcaster for the tournament tries out a new lineup, with Matthew Stevens another fresh face and voice welcomed in.
Higgins didn’t let his role affect him much, recovering from a sluggish start to beat Chris Wakelin 6-3 in the quarter-finals at the Telford International Centre.
Both players made a lot of mistakes before entering the mid-session interval all-square, but Higgins took a lengthy fifth frame on the black and duly never looked back.
“I’m absolutely delighted,” the four-time world champion, who was a finalist at the Masters last month, told the World Snooker Tour.
“Before the mid-session interval, we were missing a few and it was catching. But after the interval, it was a better standard.”
“I think I made a quick break to go 4-2 in front, and that maybe put him on the back foot a little bit.
“It was a tough, tough game. I have the utmost respect for Chris for how he has improved in the game.
“His all-round play and his safety play was a lot better than mine today. I think he’s going to do that, because he has such great knowledge of the snooker table.
“He obviously just won the Scottish Open, and that made it his second ranking title. He was higher ranked on the one-year list than myself.
“People might have been thinking that I was a slight favourite but not in my eyes, because like I said, I’ve got the utmost respect for him as a player.”
Higgins was a somewhat surprising addition to 5’s coverage on day two of the competition, and it’ll be interesting to see if he will join the array of other snooker stars from the older generation who have entered the commentating and punditry sphere on a regular basis.
“I really enjoyed both of it,” Higgins continued. “It was great being in the commentary with David Hendon, and he’s obviously a total professional.”
“He took me through the ropes a little bit, and I’d probably say that I enjoyed the commentary better than the studio side.
“The viewing public probably didn’t enjoy it. I don’t know, I don’t know. I don’t go on social media, so I don’t know if I’m getting ripped apart, but I did enjoy it.
“Who knows what’s going to happen in the future. I’ll just play it by ear. But first and foremost, I’m down here as a snooker player.
“I’m in the semi-finals, and I’m absolutely over the moon. I’ve got an unbelievable match coming up, whether it’s Judd [Trump] or Mark Williams.
“I’ll just enjoy that on Saturday.”
As it turned out, it will be Trump who Higgins will meet in the opening last-four clash after the world number one beat Williams by the same 6-3 margin in Thursday’s evening game.
Williams started the contest with a superb 141 total clearance and also contributed a 105, but Trump looked sharp and finished a strong overall display with a ton of his own.
On Friday, the other two semi-finalists will be determined with Shaun Murphy challenging world champion Zhao Xintong before a battle of the Marks between Selby and Allen.
Featured photo credit: WST
A striking aspect of the Allen/Selby H2H ahead of tonight’s quarter-final is the Antrim man leads 8-2 in last eight clashes.
Think ‘The Wizard of Wishaw’ dud a brilliant job of doing commentary. John Higgins ‘s soft Scottish accent is perfect for it!
Really looking forward to the ‘Semi- final’ Saturday today..
What a great line up!!
Alan McManus is one of the worst snooker commentators/pundits I have ever heard on TV,hope he doesn’t spoil the rest of the final for me.!!!!