World number five John Higgins has vowed to raise his game for Tuesday’s third-round clash with Yan Bingtao after struggling through his match with Cao Yupeng on Sunday. The Scot was handed a tough second round draw against Chinese prodigy Yupeng and he required a bit of fortune to secure progression. Yupeng, who reached the Northern Ireland Open final only a week ago, put up a good fight but he couldn’t quite pull off the upset that he was looking for.
Higgins prevailed 6-4 from a scrappy meeting with his highest break of 59 coming in the fourth frame at the ranking event in York. The 42-year-old lost to Yupeng 6-2 earlier this year in the quarter-finals of the International Championship but he managed to avoid crashing out this time around, although he admitted to having problems with his cue tip. Higgins said: “I wasn’t happy with my cue tip and today when I was hitting balls it was gone. That can happen with tips sometimes. “I’m going to drive up the road (to Glasgow) and ask Fraser Patrick to stick a new tip on for me. I can’t play any worse than that and if I went out with the same tip on Tuesday I would be lucky to win a frame.”
Higgins will face Bingtao in the next round on Tuesday and the Wizard of Wilshaw is expecting another tough trip to the table. He added: “I think everyone rates Bingtao really highly, he could very well win the tournament this week so I’m going to have to play 100 times better to have a chance of beating him. He enjoys the big stage, he revels in it. He’s probably going to be on the big stage for the next 20 years. He believes that he can win and you don’t get that in a lot of young players.” World number 27 Bingtao is priced at 13/10 to win the round-three meeting, while the more experienced Higgins can be backed at 4/7 to triumph.
UK Championship odds available at Dafabet.