Furious Higgins clashes with referee as he suffers elimination

A frustrated John Higgins clashed with the referee before losing his quarter-final clash with Chris Wakelin at the International Championship in Nanjing.

After Wakelin leveled the contest at 5-5, the players were taken off for several hours because the 10th frame had only been completed a little over half an hour before the evening session – including the two other quarter-finals, which was due to begin at 7.30 pm local time.

When told of the delay, Higgins appeared to swear as he gestured angrily, with the Scot then having to wait until after Ding Junhui had beaten Kyren Wilson 6-4 before they could resume.

Higgins’ day got no better once they were back at the table as Wakelin made a break of 62 to take the deciding frame and advance with a 6-5 win.

The defeat for Higgins means he will miss the Champion of Champions event next week, and this is his final chance to qualify.

Wakelin has now beaten three former world champions in Nanjing, having already accounted for Shaun Murphy and Mark Williams in the previous two rounds.

Next up for the Englishman is a semi-final against Xiao Guodong, who saw off Jackson Page 6-4 to reach the semi-finals.

Ding enjoyed breaks of 129 and 123 in his win over Wilson.

Elsewhere, Xu Si of China knocked out world No. 1 Judd Trump of England 6-4 at the World Snooker Tour (WST) International Championship in Nanjing, east China’s Jiangsu Province, on Wednesday, continuing to progress at the tournament.

Xu built a 2-0 lead with two breaks of 76, but Trump gained the lead back soon by clinching three straight frames. 

They exchanged the next two frames before Xu kept the 29-time ranking event winner from scoring a single point in the final three frames as the Chinese finished with runs of 104, 69, 58, and 68.