Robert Milkins stunned four-times world champion John Higgins to clinch a place in round two of the Bank of Beijing China Open.
Higgins squandered leads of 3-1 and 4-3 against the Gloucester potter, who despite his victory was far from happy with his form at times.
And there has been more county success today in the shape of Churchdown's Jack Lisowski, who saw off Judd Trump 5-3.
Earlier Milkins, who is nicknamed the Milkman, showed plenty of bottle in the closing stages of his match.
Higgins went 3-1 up with top breaks of 60 and 64 but Milkins took the fifth frame with an excellent brown-to-black clearance and then added the next in two scoring visits for 3-3.
Higgins regained the lead with a superb 116 and had a chance for victory in the next after Milkins missed the final yellow, but the Scot failed to gain position on the brown and his opponent cleared to the pink to force the decider.
Milkins built a 47-4 lead in the last frame, and when Higgins missed a long red by several inches the Englishman added 21 to secure the result.
His own harshest critic, Milkins said afterwards: "I've been so low on confidence for the last few weeks.
"I'm struggling to see the angles on every shot. I nicked a few frames against John and luckily for me he didn't play well, although he played better than I did and probably deserved to win.
"The only frame I felt good in was the last one. I won a big frame to go 3-2 – I made a good clearance because it was last-chance saloon. If it had been 4-1 I couldn't have won."
Milkins threw his cue on to the floor during the penultimate frame, for which he has since apologised.
He added: "It was just pure frustration. I've been playing so badly it's unbelievable, I don't feel like a professional at the moment.
"Sometimes we let our emotions out. Maybe I shouldn't have done it so I apologise to John but it hurts me when I play like that."
↧