Brown is brought back down to earth
JORDAN Brown was served a painful reminder of the reality of top-level snooker after being whitewashed by John Higgins in the first round of the Players Championship in Milton Keynes.
Brown became the lowest-ranked winner of a ranking event in over a quarter of a century when he beat Ronnie O’sullivan in a final-frame decider in the Welsh Open on Sunday.
But there was no sign of the Antrim 33-year-old repeating the feat as he was thumped 6-0 by the veteran Scot, who got off to an extraordinary start with breaks of 122, 133 and 121 in the first three frames.
Higgins was on his way to a fourth straight hundred when he ran out of position on the black on a break of 57 in the next frame, which finally enabled shell-shocked Brown to get some table time.
Brown, who had looked largely nerveless during his historic run at Celtic Manor, in which he also accounted for Mark Selby in the quarter-finals, missed a straightforward frame-ball pink in the fifth.
Higgins briefly threatened to round off his imposing display with a maximum before going astray on 48, but he completed the job to move into the lasteight.
Higgins said: “It was difficult for Jordan. He hit such a high winning the Welsh and he probably came out and felt really flat out there.”
Higgins will face Selby in the last-eight after the latter produced a strong finish to see off Welshman Mark Williams 6-4.
Williams appeared to hold the upper hand at 2-0 and 4-3 but Selby rallied with consecutive breaks of 78, 73 and 64 to wrap up victory.
GRAHAM Ford and Stuart Barnes’ biggest problem today will be to select a starting XI for the opening game of the Ireland Wolves’ tour against Bangladesh ‘A’ tomorrow (3.30am GMT).
It is 18 months since any of the 16 players were involved in a red-ball, multi-day game, so the Ireland coach and his assistant have no form to go on and only three days of net sessions since the squad came out of quarantine in Chittagong.
All will be keen to be involved in the action, none more so than the six uncapped players, Stephen Doheny, JJ Garth, Neil Rock, Ben White, Graham Hume and Ruhan Pretorius.
The latter two do not qualify, by residency, until next year but have more first-class appearances, 97 and 62 respectively, in their native South Africa than the rest of the squad combined and it will be a surprise if that experience is not used over the next four days.
Neil Rock was selected as firstchoice wicket-keeper, with Lorcan Tucker set to play as a specialist batsman, but after the latter’s unconvincing displays behind the stumps in Ireland’s recent World Cup Super League series against Afghanistan, the duties could be shared in this match and he will almost certainly be asked to wear the gloves at some stage in the remaining five one-day and two T20 matches.
The other capped players also have plenty to prove, none more so than Peter Chase, last capped in February 2019, and Shane Getkate (March 2020), while surely certain to play are the two Test players in the squad, opening batsman James Mccollum and Mark Adair, who took six wickets in Ireland’s last first-class game, against England at Lord’s in 2019. Wolves squad: H Tector (capt), M Adair, C Campher, P Chase, G Delany, S Doheny, JJ Garth, S Getkate, G Hume, J Lawlor, J Little, J Mccollum, R Pretorius, N Rock, L Tucker, B White.