The 2021-2022 Snooker Tour Championship began the first game of competition, the tournament's top seed, China's highest ranking player in the world, Zhao Xintong, and four-time World Champion Higgins engaged in a fierce competition, resulting in Zhao Xintong in a good situation of 8:4 in a good situation, and finally lost to "Wizard" Higgins at 9:10, regrettably stopping the first round of the Tour Championship and suffering a round of travel. And Higgins is the first to reach the final four of the Tour Championship after staging a shocking reversal, the result of this game is too disappointing, China's snooker's new brother Zhao Xintong was reversed in the case of only two steps away from victory, after the game Zhao Xintong posted that "this game failed everyone", as far as this game is concerned, Zhao Xintong really needs to summarize, the shortcomings are obvious If he can't improve his comprehensive strength in time, he is difficult to compare with Ding Junhui, the leader of China's snooker.
The Tour Championship is the top eight players of the snooker season to qualify, with this season's British Championship champion and The German Masters champion, Zhao Xintong's season ranking is high, he was also listed as the number one seed of this tournament, the first round of competition opponents is the thrilling qualification of Higgins, last week's Gibraltar Open, because there are many masters were eliminated early, Higgins not only received an additional prize of 150,000 pounds, he was also lucky to qualify for the Tour, in terms of the comprehensive strength of the two, Four-time World Championship champion Higgins is obviously better than Zhao Xintong, but this season Zhao Xintong has sprung up, so Chinese fans still have great hopes for Zhao Xintong to defeat Higgins in this game. In the first game, Zhao Xintong scored 53 points and then won a game first, in the second game Higgins scored 63 points and equalized, in the third game Higgins scored a single 57 points again, but Zhao Xintong attacked several times to win 68:57, and in the fourth game Higgins scored 69 points and then equalized again, and the first four games were equalized between the two sides.
In the next three games, Zhao Xintong was full of firepower, he shot 124 points and 108 points in a row and then won three consecutive sets to lead 5:2, and the experienced old Dao Higgins in the eighth game repeatedly attacked to win 64:26, without allowing Zhao Xintong to further open the score. After the start of the second half of the game, Higgins attacked several times after a narrow victory of 66:56, chasing the score to 4:5, and then the three innings of the game Zhao Xintong broke out again, he single-handedly blasted 128 points, 71 points after winning three consecutive innings to lead 8:4, just when everyone thought that there was no suspense in the game, Zhao Xintong's state suddenly dropped, too risky play let him give gifts one after another, Higgins single shot 56 points, 83 points, 59 points after winning five consecutive sets to 9:8 to get the match point, In the 18th round, Zhao Xintong, who had no way to retreat, resisted the pressure to play a single 64 points and equalized, the two sides fought to a 9:9 draw, the decider match Zhao Xintong made a mistake again, although Higgins did not play a single high score, but with multiple hands-on attack points to finally win the decider, the total score of 10:9 reverse defeat to Zhao Xintong, the first to advance to the final four.
This game Zhao Xintong lost very badly, in the case of only one step away from the victory to let the opponent achieve a stunning reversal, Zhao Xintong needs to summarize too many places, since winning the German Masters championship, Zhao Xintong's state has taken a sharp turn, The Welsh Open, The European Masters, the Turkish Masters, the Gibraltar Open, Zhao Xintong is eliminated after the first two rounds of competitions, the stability is quite poor, although the world ranked seventh, the season ranking is even higher than the first, However, the gap between Zhao Xintong and the world's top snooker players is still quite large.
Zhao Xintong's victory relies too much on accuracy, and it is far from enough to pass between masters. Zhao Xintong's shortcomings at this stage are very obvious, that is, the defensive skills are not deep, the ability to surround the ball is not strong, and the mother ball position control is not good, which are all obstacles for Zhao Xintong to become a top player. Although the offensive style of play is quite favored by the "Rockets" O'Sullivan, but if you can not comprehensively enhance your own strength, Zhao Xintong's career achievements are difficult to match Ding Junhui, although Ding Junhui is in a sluggish state at this stage, but it is undeniable that Ding Junhui's comprehensive strength is still very strong, as long as he returns to normal state, Ding Junhui still has a fairly strong competitiveness, and Zhao Xintong needs to improve too many places.