In a game lasting seven hours and seven minutes, McManus was never in front until he potted the opening red of the deciding 19th frame. He went on to add a vital run of 34 and later fluked the final brown to leave Snaddon requiring snookers.
Snaddon will be kicking himself for letting McManus escape. He began the match on Monday with a break of 131 during an early 3-0 lead. He finished the first session 5-3 up and continued to improve early on yesterday.Two frames turned the match in McManus’s favour. A clearance of 65 from 58-0 down enabled him to win frame 13 and he just managed to take the 14th when Snaddon, clearing up, potted the yellow only to see the cue ball go in-off. McManus later missed the pink, but so too did Snaddon, and by eventually securing the frame 70-49 he was back in contention.Snaddon was to win only one more frame, the 17th, before nerves and McManus’s relentless pressure finally finished him..

The first time John Higgins met Alex Higgins, the Hurricane left his mark. The young Scot had just lost to Jimmy White and to get a word of consolation from the great man would have made a difference. Instead he got: “If you don’t learn to play with side, you’ll never be in my class.”

Those with a generous spirit would ascribe Higgins’ words as a helpful hint or maybe a gentle nudge towards the toughness required to survive at snooker’s top table John Higgins will have none of it. “I thought he would come up and say ‘bad luck, you played well’. He was one of my heroes, someone I looked up to, and he was slagging me off. I think he was wary because another Higgins was coming along.”
Higgins, 21, has long since moved out of Alex’s controversial shadow.

Indeed, with Peter Ebdon already history he represents the most likely player to wrench the World Championship from Stephen Hendry’s grasp. Last night, he was facing the world No 113, Graham Horne, after which Tony Drago and either Ken Doherty or Steve Davis are likely to provide the opposition.It is a path to the semi-finals that is well within the world No 2’s compass and yet the expectation placed on his head is less than it has been for two years. In 1995 and 1996 he arrived as Hendry’s great danger, but lost to Alan McManus (10-3) and Ronnie O’Sullivan (13-12). The pressure is on others.”I’ve left Sheffield twice feeling deeply disappointed and I don’t think people expect me to win it now,” he said. “The first time I just sat there watching Alan thinking all the things a fan does.

You know ‘this is where my heroes have played’, or ‘isn’t the Crucible small’. My mind wasn’t on the job at all.”Last year I lost a a bad match to Ronnie. I was 10-6 ahead and you shouldn’t lose to anyone from that position It hurt me a lot. The way I was playing I really thought I was going to win the title.”The 1996-97 season has been a strange one for Higgins. He says his snooker is far short of the mark he knows he can achieve and yet he won the European Open in Malta in March and has earned more than pounds 220,000 in prize-money. This on top of changing his cue at the turn of the year.Golfers might be fickle with their clubs, but snooker players regard the tool of their trade as an extension of their arms and change them with great reluctance.