John Higgins says the finish line is getting closer. The four-time world champion, who is still ranked sixth in the world at 51, said he expects to retire within the next two years and plans to scale back his schedule along the way.
Higgins has been a professional for 34 years, and he is still performing at a high level. This year, he reached the World Championship semi-finals, and this week he beat Hossein Vafaei and Noppon Saengkham in the British Open before reaching the last 32 on Thursday.
Why practice is becoming harder
The bigger shift for Higgins is not just age, but the way his day-to-day routine is changing. He said motivation to practice is harder to sustain now, especially with the shared practice base he uses with Stephen Maguire and Anthony McGill set to be given up later this year.
Higgins said that when he has to go back to practicing at home, it could become more difficult to keep putting the work in. He also pointed to the packed snooker calendar as part of the reason he is still able to stay sharp, saying the number of tournaments can substitute for practice to a degree.
That is also why his schedule is expected to shrink. Higgins said he will miss next week’s English Open and believes he will play fewer events over the next two years, with six or seven tournaments a season sounding like the point where he could step back further.
A long career entering its final stretch
Higgins has long been one of snooker’s most durable top players, and nothing in his recent results suggests he has stopped competing seriously. But his comments make clear that the challenge is now less about talent and more about sustaining the daily grind that comes with staying at the top.
He said there will still be good moments and bad moments, but that the competitive instinct does not simply switch off. For a player who has spent most of his life chasing titles, that is part of what makes retirement difficult to define. Still, with Higgins openly talking about winding down his schedule, the next two years look set to be the closing stretch of a remarkable career.
