World Championship 2026: John Higgins battles back to level semi-final with Shaun Murphy

John Higgins put on a fighting display to fight back from 3-1 down to a 4-4 draw against Shaun Murphy in the opening session of the World Championship semi-final at the Crucible Theater in Sheffield.

The four-time world champion’s shot, whose top score of 50 earned him his eighth frame of the competition, was anything but smooth.

In fact, for much of Thursday afternoon he appeared to still be feeling the effects of his quarter-final victory over Neil Robertson at midnight.

Higgins, who turned 51 in May and is the oldest semi-finalist since Ray Reardon in 1985, was still at the Crucible after midnight Wednesday and was said to have failed to score a series of easy pots in an error-riddled display.

But not for the first time in the tournament, he displayed all the determination and solid match-play qualities that make him such a dangerous opponent.

The best-of-33 matches resume at 10am BST on Friday, with the remaining last four matches kicking off at 7pm on Thursday between China’s Wu Yize and Northern Ireland’s Mark Allen.