The World Snooker Championship quarter-finals begin on Tuesday morning, and John Higgins will start his World Championship quarter-final with Neil Robertson as a warm favourite. Higgins arrives fresh from a 10-from-12 record in deciding frames at the Crucible and a last-gasp win over Ronnie O'Sullivan on Monday.
The numbers underline why the match is being talked about. Neil Robertson leads Higgins 18-16 in their head-to-head, and he has twice pulled off dramatic reversals against Higgins in major finals — coming from 5-1 down to win 6-5 at last year's Masters and overturning the same deficit to beat him in the 2022 Tour Championship final. Higgins, however, has his own Crucible history; he beat Robertson 13-10 in a World Championship quarter-final in 2019 and has repeatedly shown an appetite for late drama, most recently edging Mark Allen in a deciding frame at the World Championship in 2024 and then rallying from 9-4 down to defeat O'Sullivan on Monday.
"It speaks to John Higgins' remarkable resurgence that he will start his World Championship quarter-final with Neil Robertson as a warm favourite," said Richard Mann, capturing the odd contrast at the heart of the tie. The match is a rematch in more ways than one: form, memory and the scoreboard suggest this will live or die in the later sessions.
Context matters: Higgins' record in deciding frames at the Crucible stands at 10 from 12, and he has twice in January beaten top opponents in deciders at the Masters, defeating Zhao Xintong and Judd Trump. Yet his season has not been without blemish — he did not play well in the final of the Masters against Kyren Wilson and was comprehensively beaten by Wu Yize in the final of the International Championship. Robertson, by contrast, has been steady through the early rounds, beating Pang Junxu in round one and finishing strongly to see off Chris Wakelin in his next match.
There is real tension between those two threads. Higgins' knack for surviving and thriving in deciding frames argues that he will not be overawed when the score tightens; Robertson's head-to-head advantage and history of late surges argue the opposite. A market-sourced betting tip even suggested Robertson would be leading Higgins after eight frames at 7/4 with betway, an early signal of which way some money is leaning. "Don't be surprised if there is a hangover there," Mann warned, pointing to the thin margin between the two players' recent highs and lows.
The other quarter-final on Tuesday pairs Hossein Vafaei with Chinese sensation Wu Yize, and markets have marked Vafaei as an underdog — quoted at 7/4. "The market suggests Hossein Vafaei is up against it when taking on Chinese sensation Wu Yize, quotes of 7/4 certainly taking the eye," Mann said, adding his own doubt: "I’m not sure those odds are fair." The line on that match serves as a reminder that the tournament is producing fresh names and fresh narratives even as it replays familiar rivalries.
If you are looking for what to expect next, don’t plan for a procession. Between Robertson’s history of late recoveries and Higgins’ remarkable record in deciders, this quarter-final is set up to be a tight, late-night contest that will likely be decided deep in the match — exactly the sort of encounter that has defined their recent meetings and the World Snooker Championship itself.
