On the evening of December 12 and the early morning of the next day, Beijing time, the snooker Scottish Open ended the competition for the championship. Higgins lost the title battle against Brechel and was runners-up again. Belgian teenager Lucca Brechel won the second ranking tournament of his career.
Higgins and Luca both beat their opponents 6-1 in the semi-finals to advance to the final, both of them feel and in very good shape, but Higgins is far better than Luca in terms of overall strength. But Luca also played surprisingly this time, taking a 3-0 lead at the beginning of the game and finally winning the championship 9-5.
In the first set, both sides were tentative, and Brechel took the initiative to attack, taking the lead 71-33 to win the first set. In the second set, Luca seized the opportunity to take a 2-0 lead with a 96-point clean sheet for Higgins. In the third set, Higgins did not have good scoring conditions, and in the end, Brechel won 61-8 to take a 3-0 lead. In the fourth set, Higgins finally began to organize the attack, Brechel started the defensive effect, Higgins hit a piecemeal hit to win the fourth set 91-0, pulling back a set. At the end of the first half, the score was 3-1.
The second half of the match began at 3 a.m. the next day. In the fifth set, Luca was still online after a break, and came up to play a single 61 points, which also made a good start for the second half of the game, taking a 4-1 lead 69-21. In the sixth inning, the two sides began to fight. Higgins played on the side of the defense, Luca saw the move, the two men after several encounters, Luca slightly better, 59-56 difficult to win the sixth set, the score to 5-1.
In the seventh inning, Higgins finally played a little bit of feel, and pulled back a set with a single 70 point, which was his first 50+ of the game, and the score was 5-2, Higgins was still three sets behind. In the eighth set, Luca returned with a single score of 104 points, once again keeping a clean sheet again, extending his score advantage. Immediately following the ninth and tenth innings, he scored a single 79 and 64 points respectively, and the score then came to 8-2, and Luca led the six innings into the match point.
Higgins fought back and won the eleventh set 97-5 to reclaim a match point but still trailing five innings. In the twelfth and thirteenth innings, Higgins shot a single 73 and 53 points respectively to continue chasing the score, and the two scores were reduced to 8-5. But Luca, who has entered the match point, has performed very relaxed, and Higgins, who has always been good at staging reversal dramas, is also a bit difficult to overcome in such a big lead. In the final fourteenth set, Luca ended the battle with a single shot of 127 points after starting to win the championship 9-5. Once again, Higgins failed to break the runner-up spell.
Higgins is a 75-year veteran and is ranked sixth in the world. He has won 31 ranking tournaments and is the 23rd time he has finished runners-up in the final. For fans, Higgins represents an era. Luca, who was a youngster in '95, was last won before this one, dating back to the 2017 Mid-China Championships. This is a PK spanning 20 years, showing the style of a veteran, and once again announcing to the world that the 90 era is coming.