John Higgins v Luca Brecel live stream | Tour Championship 2022 preview
Brecel is eyeing a second straight win over Higgins (Richard Sellers/PA Wire/PA Images)
John Higgins and Luca Brecel go head to head on Saturday for the right to face Neil Robertson in the Tour Championship final.
The second of the last-four clashes in Llandudno is a repeat of the Scottish Open final at Venue Cymru last December, which Brecel won 9-5.
That was the Belgian’s first ever victory over Higgins in a ranking event, and he will be eyeing a similar performance here.
Brecel returned to Llandudno having failed to progress beyond the last 16 of any tournament since his Scottish Open triumph, which came a week after he was runner-up to Zhao Xintong at the UK Championship.
And the Bullet was close to his fluent best against Judd Trump; hitting a century and seven further breaks over 50 in an impressive 10-6 victory over the Turkish Masters winner.
Meanwhile, Higgins heads into the 79th ranking event semi-final of his career targeting a fifth final this term.
The Championship League winner had failed to record a victory in his two previous Tour Championship appearances; falling at the first hurdle to Trump and Ronnie O’Sullivan respectively.
It looked like he would complete an unwanted hat-trick when UK champion Zhao stormed into an 8-4 lead at the start of this week. However, the four-time World champion demonstrated his trademark determination once again, producing a wonderful turnaround to prevail 10-9.
The Venue Cymru crowd were treated to an epic encounter between O’Sullivan and Robertson on Friday – with the latter holding his nerve to prevail in a deciding frame – and they will be hoping the two players can produce similar levels of drama 24 hours later.
The match gets under way from 1pm BST for a maximum of eight frames before resuming to a finish over the best of 19 from 7.30pm.
Reigning champion Robertson will await the winner in Sunday’s final.