Ronnie O'Sullivan's verdict on John Higgins after their 13-12 last-16 thriller looked, at the time, like a graceful exit line. By Thursday it was beginning to look like a forecast.
"John played well and deserved his win," the Rocket told the BBC immediately after Higgins' extraordinary recovery from 9-4 down at the Crucible. "He's got a chance of winning the championship if he keeps playing like he did in that session."
In the 96 hours since, the 2026 World Snooker Championship has cleared a path for that prediction to come true. Hossein Vafaei stunned world No. 1 Judd Trump 13-12 in another deciding-frame thriller, with the Iranian sealing the match with a composed 91 break. Defending champion Zhao Xintong then fell to Shaun Murphy in the quarter-finals, becoming the latest victim of the so-called Crucible curse. Three of the four pre-tournament favourites are gone.
Higgins, by contrast, has built form through the rounds. His comeback against O'Sullivan featured three centuries on a single day and the kind of disciplined safety play that has historically defined Crucible champions. The 50-year-old Scot arrives in the semi-final against Murphy with a four-time world title pedigree and an ability to compartmentalise the long sessions that frequently decide such matches.
Higgins' own assessment of the comeback emphasised his refusal to let the deficit overwhelm him.
"I came to the party at last! That was brilliant," Higgins said. "I wasn't too despondent after that first session. I know my cue ball wasn't great and playing Ronnie, his cue ball is pinpoint and it can demoralise you, but I was 6-2 down and I told the family if I win the next two frames I had a chance."
That mental architecture — strip the match into manageable two-frame chunks and refuse to look at the scoreboard — is precisely the discipline that has historically taken Higgins all the way at the Crucible. He has lifted the trophy four times, the last in 2011, and was beaten finalist on three other occasions.
O'Sullivan's own future looks more open. The seven-time world champion has spent the past 12 months managing form and motivation publicly, but his post-match remarks were notably positive about the longer arc of his game.
"I feel like I am enjoying my game and in a better place this month than I have been for a few years, but I just missed too many key balls," he said.
The Rocket is unlikely to vanish from the elite ranks. His preparation for the championship had been described as more focused than in recent seasons, and his close defeat to Higgins — including a deciding frame in which he himself acknowledged a poor positional shot — speaks to a player still operating near the top tier.
For the moment, however, the championship belongs to the survivors. The semi-finals begin Thursday with Higgins facing Murphy in one half and Wu Yize meeting whichever of the lower-bracket survivors emerges. Higgins' name is now widely fancied to be on the trophy come Monday.
If he gets there, he will have done it almost exactly as the man he eliminated suggested. "He's got a chance," O'Sullivan said. He has more than that now.
