‘Something special’ – O’Sullivan & Higgins renew rivalry

It was 30 years ago, but John Higgins remembers it as if it was yesterday.

Two fresh-faced 20-year-olds going head-to-head in an epic quarter-final at the 1996 World Snooker Championship, with the Scot one frame away from defeating England’s Ronnie O’Sullivan.

“That is one match that sticks in my mind,” said Higgins. “I was 12-11 in front and I remember it as clear as day.”

The colours are all on their spots – a regular training programme usually dispatched with ease for a man of his talent. Pot them all and he is in the semi-finals for the first time.

Legendary BBC commentator Ted Lowe, predicting trouble may be ahead in the Crucible cauldron, says: “The butterflies must be floating around his tummy.”

Higgins, with perfect memory 30 years on, takes up the story: “I’ve got an easy clearance with the colours. I normally pot the brown and just play off the side cushion and be above the blue.

“This time I decided just to stun the blue down when you’re under a bit of pressure. I was well below the blue. I went round the cushion, went round the angles and landed a very tough rest shot.”

Still, Higgins is only two shots from the semi-finals. But the tricky pink is missed, O’Sullivan cleans up, wins the decider and Higgins is out.

In the semi-final, O’Sullivan then lost to Peter Ebdon, who was beaten by Stephen Hendry in the final.

“I might have won the World Championship two years earlier than I did,” said a rueful Higgins, who admitted that was one of his most painful losses in his 34-year professional career.

“It was a brilliant game. We were only 20 and it was a slugfest, shot for shot. They are the ones that give you a bit of steel going forward, the games that make you as a player.

“You never think of your good wins. It’d be great if you thought of your good wins, but you always think of the ones that got away.”

What made the pair’s first Crucible match even more remarkable were the circumstances going into it.

The night before, O’Sullivan faced a disciplinary hearing after he had assaulted a World Snooker press officer and could have been thrown out of the tournament.

While Higgins waited in his hotel to see if he would be given an automatic victory, O’Sullivan was getting fined £20,000 and being handed a suspended two-year ban.

“There were conflicting reports that he was going to get thrown out,” said Higgins. “I was lying in my bed at night thinking: ‘Am I going to get a bye to the semi-finals here?'”

“I didn’t know until one o’clock in the morning whether I was going to play Ronnie at 10am.

“I got a phone call in the hotel. I was staying at the old Grosvenor that’s not there any more and it basically says: ‘Yeah, you’re playing Ronnie at 10.’

“So it’s just funny how you remember things. That was many years ago, 30 years ago. I remember it as clear as day.”

In a truly remarkable story of hard work, endurance, talent and dedication, the pair are still at the top of the sport three decades later and will go head-to-head in the last 16 on Saturday.

Thirty years on from that first memorable Crucible meeting, O’Sullivan has seven world titles, Higgins has four, both having long cemented their positions as two of the greatest players the sport has ever seen.

“We deserve a great pat on the back,” added Higgins, who admitted he never thought he would still be playing so well at this age.

Higgins and O’Sullivan are both now 50, while they are joined in the last 16 by the third member of snooker’s fabled ‘Class of 92’, with 51-year-old Mark Williams still in contention for a fourth title.

O’Sullivan holds the record for being the oldest world champion after his most recent success four years ago, aged 46, but that could be beaten in the next week and a half.

After that first World Championship meeting in 1996, Higgins beat O’Sullivan 17-9 in the 1998 semi-finals on his way to his first title, before the Rocket got his revenge, winning 18-14 in the 2001 final for his first success.

Higgins then gained 13-9 and 13-10 wins in the quarter-finals of 2007 and 2011 respectively, before O’Sullivan won their most recent Crucible tie, 17-11 in the 2022 semi-finals.

They have played six times at the famous Sheffield theatre, with three wins apiece.

O’Sullivan felt any meeting between the ‘Class of 92’ members was a big occasion.

“I find it easier playing Mark than I do John,” said O’Sullivan. “John enjoys playing me, I enjoy playing Mark, and Mark enjoys playing John. John doesn’t like playing Mark.

“I first played John at Pontins, we were 14 [at the Pontins Autumn Open juniors competition]. I had never heard of him until that tournament, but you knew then that he was an unbelievable player.

“Now it’s a couple a oldies that are just hanging around. John plays better against me than I do against him so I will be a bit of an underdog – the pressure is off me and more on him, hopefully I can give him a good game.”

O’Sullivan has tried to claim he should be called ‘Rusty Ron’ because of not regularly playing in 2026, although he then crushed China’s He Guoqiang 10-2 in the first round, using a different cue in the two sessions.

Higgins defeated Ali Carter 10-7 in round one and said the fact this could be his last Crucible match against O’Sullivan made the occasion even more memorable.

“That’s what the rest of my career is all about – to savour these nights,” added Higgins.

“But you’ve got to put that to one side because you’re there to win. It’s only the second round as well, so you’re there to make it through. So I’ll look forward to it.

“There’s a big, big chance this could be our final game, so it will be something to savour – it will be special.”