Home favourite John Higgins says he has a “decent feeling” about his chances of winning the Scottish Open after advancing into the third-round stage of the tournament. Higgins suffered a shock defeat to England’s Mark King in the last-16 stage of the UK Championship prior to the event in Glasgow and it was unclear how the Scot would fare on home soil.
The ‘Wizard of Wishaw’ thumped Jack Lisowski 4-1 in the first round before he repeated that scoreline against Christopher Keogan, who equalled his best run in a ranking tournament. Scotland’s number one, who is ranked fifth in the world, produced a sublime performance, making breaks of 144, 138, 108 and 85 to book his spot in the third round of the competition. Fifth-seeded Higgins will now go up against Gerard Greene with the latter, who beat Mike Dunn 4-3 to reach this stage, looking for his first win over the four-time world champion at the seventh time of asking.
The two-time Scottish Open champion, who lost in the final to Marco Fu last year, is feeling confident about his game and potentially going on to lift the trophy for the third time. “You can’t play any better than that,” Higgins said. “Everybody gets chances in matches and Chris probably had a chance to make it 2-2. Apart from that, he never really did too much wrong. “You can sometimes get to a venue and have a decent feeling, and I am hoping it is this week for me.” Higgins is the firm 1/7 favourite to win his third-round encounter whilst Greene is the 17/4 outsider.
Dafabet Scottish Open odds available at Dafabet.