'It's Tough at My Age' – John Higgins reveals battle for motivation and travel demands on tour

The 51-year-old was talking to Channel 5 after his 4-1 opening round win against Hossein Vafaei on Monday night at the 2026 British Open.

Higgins went one down after Iran's top cueist made a 66 in the opener before stringing together four successive frames along with breaks of 78 and 92.

Next up for the four-time World Champion at The Centaur in Cheltenham is a round of 64 meeting with recent China Open runner-up Noppon Saengkham on Wednesday.

‘Class of 92’ graduate Higgins is now into his 35th consecutive season on the professional snooker circuit. The Scot didn’t claim a title last season, although he was runner-up at the International Championship and Players Championship, and the most prestigious invitational event on the circuit, the Masters.

The 33-time ranking event winner also very nearly made it to an incredible ninth World Championship final at the Crucible. Having dismissed Ronnie O’Sullivan and Neil Robertson in previous rounds, Higgins narrowly lost 17-15 to Shaun Murphy within the one-table set-up in Sheffield.

New season preparations are getting ‘harder and harder’ says Higgins

After the near misses of last season, Higgins revealed that he has found the going tough at the start of this new term, and motivation is becoming more of an issue each passing year.

‘The Wizard of Wishaw’ said: “It gets harder and harder after the World Championship every year to get back on that practise table and try and put the hours in to keep you up there competing with the best players, and right now, I’ve just not got that. It’s not like a ‘poor me’ story - we all go through it.”

It has been a difficult start to the 2026/27 campaign for Higgins, and with the recent 'Chinese swing' triple-header in the Far East, travel demands took their toll on the vastly experienced cueman.

At the Shanghai Masters, he ousted Jack Lisowski on the final black in a deciding frame before being whitewashed 6-0 by Judd Trump.

A couple of weeks later, Higgins lost 6-4 to Stuart Bingham in the first round of the China Open in Taiyuan. He then subsequently withdrew from the Wuhan Open amidst some health issues.

Higgins looking for spark to “fall in love” with snooker again

Higgins explained that the early season schedule has been less than ideal for him. “With the Chinese events at the start of the season, it just never fell kindly for the likes of myself. I was flying back-and-forth, back-and-forth - I had some health issues and I couldn't go to the third one (Wuhan Open).

“You just can't do it now at this age...it's just hard, it really is hard.”

Having elected not to enter next week’s English Open in Brentwood, Higgins will be keen to have a good run at this week’s British Open, not only for his ranking position, but to try and inspire him for the upcoming months.

“It's tough, so you just take each tournament and look at the merits and then decide what you're going to do.

“So, yeah, it's been a tough start, but listen, all it takes is one tournament to get you going and then you might fall in love with the game again, so that's what happens.”

The British Open holds very fond memories for Higgins having won the title in 1995, 1998, 2001 and 2004. With four crowns, he sits top on the competition’s all-time list alongside compatriot Stephen Hendry.

To view the full draw, results, schedule, and other information from the 2026 British Open snooker, visit our tournament information centre here.