Chinalife Xingpai Hainan Classic 2011 - the final (part II)

22:56:00 Ramona Dragomir 0 Comments

John Higgins, the 2011 Hainan Classic champion
The 2011Hainan Classic tournament has come to an end and when a competition ends we have (logically) a winner! :-)) The second session of the final confrontation wasn’t too much of a surprise, I mean the score didn’t come as one, because we’ve seen from the beginning of the match the good form John Higgins was in and the chances Jamie Cope kept on wasting. So yes peeps, one more trophy was lifted by the proud of Scotland - John Higgins! He played absolutely superb and that brought him a huge reward.


Frame six saw Higgins attacking as well as he did it in the first session but a missed red with the rest stopped him from continuing his break of 48, Cope coming to the table as to hit a beautiful 75 and win his second frame of this match. The score was now 4-2.
In his seat, John seemed a bit anxious to get over with this match, probably he felt that if Jamie kept on winning frame after frame he will gain his confidence back and he knew that the Englishman was a tough player to deal with. But he didn’t have to worry too much as Cope failed to take advantage of John’s foul (from the beginning of frame seven), the Scot succeeding in hitting a 69 break. However there was a bit of drama in this frame because John missed frame ball, so Cope returned to the table as to take his chances. Unfortunately for him he didn’t quite bottle with the situation and in the end he concealed the frame.

The last two frames were conquered with two marvelous breaks of 111 and 109 by the current world no. 1, John Higgins. The Scotsman played like a king, he had a fluent game and he didn’t miss too many balls in the process. Final score: 7-2.

Jamie Cope, the 2011 Hainan Classic runner-up
On the other hand Jamie seemed to have given up the fight long before the second frame started. I told you that there was a moment when he left his cue on the floor, suggesting that he had given up the fight soon after he missed a huge chance to draw at 2-2. No one can blame the guy, it’s hard to see that you just can’t get your way among the balls, but this sport it’s all about strong nerves and this time, Higgins was the one who coped the situation better than Jamie. Maybe it was a case of more experience, maybe it was about having a bad day, still we can’t overlook the fact that Jamie occupies a place in the Top 16 and the his performance during this exhibition was very good. His time will come, there’s no doubt about that! :-)


So one more victory cashed by John Higgins! He has had such a great season! Paying against the great names of this sport, playing under tough conditions, after bad events and with a stigma on his forehead. There are times like these when I say to myself that if you really want something and you give it 100%, it’s impossible not to obtain it - at least for Higgins this totally applies.
Congratulations to both players, it was a very good final with lot of great shots and interesting situation to handle. Congratulations to the organization team, although there were some problems here and there and the audience wasn’t very prepared for a game of snooker (phones ringing all the time), but hopefully next year things will be better.


Oh, and not to forget… maybe a less heavy trophy will be a good idea. I couldn’t help in seeing that Higgins was struggling to hold the "little" guy in his arms :-))

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