Players Tour Championship Event 5 (2011) - Higginson wins his first pro title

Andrew Higginson - the PTC 5 event champion

Andrew Higginson manages to win his first professional title after beating the current world champion, John Higgins, 4-1 in the final of this year's Players Tour Championship Event Five (PTC 5). This brings another new name to the list of PTC's champions.

Andrew Higginson cashes an important victory by winning his first ranking event, and more since it is obtained by defeating a four-time world champion. 
The Englishman started the snooker journey with his right foot by performing a whitewash of 4-0 against Joe Meara, continued in straight line as he defeated the powerful Chinese XiaoGuodong by the same scoreline and booked a place into the Last 16 with a 4-1 applied on Players Tour Championship Event Three winner, Ben Woollaston.

John Higgins - the PTC 5 event runner-up

The final day found him dominating again, Ian McCulloch being his first victim (4-0), during the quarter-finals he beat the strategist Dave Harold by 4-2, while the semi-final was conquered with a simple 4-1 against Jack Lisowski.

On the other side, John Higgins, who qualified for the final day after beating David Grace 4-0, Michael Wasley 4-2 and his fellow country Alan McManus 4-1, was playing great also. He started his day with a 4-2 against the restless Ryan Day, continued by taking revenge of this week's Premier League match to Neil Robertson with a 4-1 result and finally booked himself a place in the final with another 4-1, this time by playing Barry Hawkins.

Higginson in action

And so the grand final was bringing together Andrew Higginson and John Higgins. Although after the first two frames the lads were all square at 1-1, it wasn't going to pass too much time until the 33-year-old player from Cheshire would fire in breaks of 78, 46 and 36 to take all the remaining frames and freeze the scoreline at 4-1 in his favour.

So after five days of cue battles we add another distinct name to the wall of fame: Andrew Higginson - the champion of PTC 5.
My sincere congratulations to both finalists (it was really great to see Higgins back in business and as sharp as we all know he can be), but also to all the other players that got out of their comfort zone and have given their best.

The next PTC will take place in Poland's Warsaw between September 29^th and October 2^nd. See you then, my dear snooker loopies!