Higgins inches back in match fit for a final

When Mark Williams was younger he was a promising amateur boxer until, short of an opponent, he had to go in the ring with a bigger fighter. "He was a couple of stone heavier and it was like getting hit by a bus every time he threw a punch," he said. "So I gave up."

There were times during yesterday's Embassy World Championship semi-final when John Higgins could empathise with the young and battered pugilist who suddenly decided snooker was a safer pastime to indulge in. The 1998 champion eradicated the damage somehow although he had been clinging to the ropes for much of the day; Williams will be ruing a missed opportunity.

At 8-5 with three to play, the world No 1 in waiting was poised to make a decisive break for the 17-frame winning post but Higgins, who who lost at the same stage to the same opponent last year, inched his way back to equality. "I'm fresh as a daisy," Higgins had said as he entered the match, and his recovery to 8-8 will have rejuvenated a mood that appeared considerably wilted at times.

Who will win what would have been a magnificent final is anyone's guess, although if Higgins can endure such a difficult session and still come out equal it should be a formality if he starts playing well.

Yesterday's session had to be judged in the context of the previous evening's, where the quality of the snooker was so sublime it was difficult to imagine it being bettered. A slip, a slight piece of bad luck and the opponent pounced and eight frames were shared equally at the rate of 11 minutes apiece.

When you watch potting of that quality it is hard to reconcile that this is the same sport as practised by that notorious sloth Eddie Charlton in the Seventies and Eighties. But it is: the players have simply got better and quicker.

Not that "Steady Eddie" would have felt hopelessly rushed off his feet by yesterday's first frame which lasted 17min 36sec and was almost in the watching-paint-dry category compared to the night before. A slip from Higgins with the rest and Williams was in, taking the frame 77-41.

A rest proved as good as a change in the next frame, too, when Higgins again threw away a chance with it and, although he took the next 70-15, it was an indication of his unhappiness that he left the arena as fast as he could for the mid-session interval even though there were still five reds left on the table. So intent was he to get away he eschewed the normal exit and nipped up the side of the curtain.

The interval proved only a temporary respite because Williams took the next frame with a 78 break. A commanding lead beckoned, but one of Higgins' strengths is his ability to pinch successes when he is not playing well and a frame-winning 73 was followed by an edgy 16-minute trial of nerves that the Scot pinched with a 32.

Suddenly, the worst he could face was a surmountable 9-7 handicap and, free from the fear he could have thrown the match away, his cueing became more fluid and he took the last frame of the day 69-7.

Williams may look grumpy when he is playing - "It's because I'm concentrating so hard" - but the façade is deceptive. The 25-year-old Welshman is regarded as one of the more jovial characters in the game, "one of the lads" as a peer put it this week. The smile is big, but then when you have won nearly £1.5m why shouldn't it be?

It is rare that a player arrives at the Crucible already guaranteed being world No 1, but Williams did it this year thanks to two years of achievement that borders on avarice. Six times he has made it to a final this season and twice he has emerged the winner, a bout of consistency that even Higgins, for all his three titles this term, cannot match.

The easy life then? Williams would agree because 10 years ago his father, Delwyn, sensing his son would go far in snooker, ensured his son's feet would always be scraping the ground by taking him down a coal mine near to their Cwm home.

"Looking back it was a genuinely scary experience," Williams said. "I was kitted out with a battery on my back and a spotlight on my helmet. Everything was pitch black and, believe me, it was a learning experience. What's more it made me realise I would never be a miner.

"I look at life, the money I earn, and it makes me appreciate how fortunate I have been. I've earned more than my Dad will do in the whole of his life. The mines are no longer there. They've all been closed down. So many people lost their jobs and I dread to think what might have happened to me if I hadn't turned to snooker."