Liam Highfield

Liam Highfield
birthday	1st December 1990 (age 29)
place of birth	Swindon
nationality	England
professional	since 2010
Prize money	£ 280,149 (as of August 30, 2020)
Highest break	140 ( English Open 2017 )
Century Breaks	81 (as of August 30, 2020)
Main tour successes
World championships	-
Ranking tournament victories	-
Minor tournament victories	-
World rankings
Highest WRL place	55 ( November-December 2018 )
Current WRL location	63 (as of August 17, 2020)

Liam Highfield (born December 1, 1990 in Swindon ) is an English snooker player .

Career

Liam Highfield was born in Swindon in south-west England but grew up in the Midlands in Stoke-on-Trent . He began playing snooker in 1998 after watching John Higgins' world championship fight on television. In his youth he trained at a club in neighboring Newcastle-under-Lyme , where he played with Dave Harold and later with Jamie Cope in his youth . At the EASB Premier Junior Event 2008 in Leicester , he achieved his first maximum break in a tournament at the age of 17 .

In the 2007/08 season he first took part in the Pontin's International Open Series to qualify for the professional tour . Although he won the last of the 8 tournaments and was once again in the quarter-finals, it was only enough for 12th place overall. In the following year the PIOS participation remained unsuccessful, but he won the U-19 youth title at the English amateur championships. In 2009/10 he succeeded in another PIOS tournament victory, two more times he was in the finals. Only Jack Lisowski did better in this series and thus he was qualified for the Main Tour from 2010.

Professional time from 2010

He had his first successes in the 2010/11 season in the newly introduced Players Tour Championship . In the second tournament he reached the round of 16 with a win against Judd Trump . At tournament number 10 in Gloucester he won against Fergal O'Brien and Graeme Dott among others and was even in the semi-finals. In the big tournaments, reaching the third qualifying round at the Shanghai Masters after beating Jimmy White was his best result. He also collected points at other tournaments and at the end of the season was 68th in the world rankings . With this he missed the direct qualification for the Main Tour by four places, in the PTC Order of Merit , the ranking of the PTC tournaments, he was the second best non-qualified player and was qualified for another professional season.

The following year, the PTC tournaments were again his most successful, twice he reached the second round. And at the Australian Goldfields Open , he missed his first main round participation in a ranking tournament to win. But although he survived the opening round for the first time at the end of the season at the World Cup , he just missed further qualification as 66th. Again the PTC Order of Merit 2012 saved him , in which he took the last of the eight qualifying places. This time, however, the rules had been changed and the start permit for the professional tour was valid for two years.

In the 2012/13 season , the Players Tour was not so successful for him, although he reached another round of 16 at the Munich Open . But he was among the last 48 in three ranking tournaments: At the Australian Open , the World Open and the World Cup , he was only missing one victory in the main tournament. The following year, however, was disappointing. Only at the Australian Open did he reach the third qualifying round, otherwise there were almost only initial defeats. This time there were no successes on the Players Tour either. With rank 83 , he clearly missed the Main Tour qualification and the PTC rating was not enough. Problems in the private environment also contributed to the failed season. At the beginning of 2014, he also moved from his traditional training club in Newcastle to his hometown of Stoke.

Second attempt from 2014

This time, Highfield had to apply for a new professional tour ticket through Q School . At the first tournament he was eliminated early, at the second tournament he reached the final of his group and with a win over Alex Pagulayan he was again qualified for the Main Tour until 2016.

In the 2014/15 season , the Australian Goldfields Open was again his most successful tournament. For the first time he reached the finals of a world ranking tournament in Bendigo . After the turn of the year, he defeated Marco Fu in the last qualifying round of the German Masters and then took part in the second finals. At the Gdynia Open , he made it into the round of 16 for the fifth time in a minor ranking tournament. In 2015/16 he was able to repeat the round of 16 at the Gdynia Open again. The last qualifying round at the Shanghai Masters and the World Championship were the only two major successes. Once again, as 67th in the world rankings , he missed the direct qualification and again the 8th place of the PTC Order of Merit saved him from remaining on the tour.

The 2016/17 season began with early defeats before he made it to the last sixteen in a full ranked tournament at the Paul Hunter Classic for the first time in his career. With Ricky Walden , he defeated another top 16 player. Two months later he even defeated world number one Mark Selby 4: 3 at the English Open and was among the last 32.

In the following season 2017/18 Liam Highfield was able to qualify for the finals of the Snooker World Championship for the first time . He lost in the first round to Mark Allen 5:10.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Profile of Liam Highfield on CueTracker (as of August 28, 2018)
2. ↑ Liam Highfield - Aiming High , own blog entry on the Pro Snooker Blog, 2011, accessed on November 18, 2016
3. ↑ PIOS ranking 2007/2008 season ( Memento from March 14, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
4. ↑ 2009-10 PIOS Rankings ( Memento from October 6, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
5. ↑ Liam Highfield Secures Place on Snooker Tour , Snookerclub.com, May 2014, accessed November 18, 2016
6. ↑ Round 1 - Match 2 ( Memento from April 29, 2018 in the Internet Archive )

Web links

Commons : Liam Highfield  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Liam Highfield ( Memento June 4, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
• Profile at Pro Snooker Blog
• Game statistics at snooker.org