7 July 15th, the 24th round of the 2024 Snooker Shanghai Masters advanced to the 16th round. Higgins defeated Lu Haotian with a score of 6-1 and successfully advanced. He will face Sean Murphy in the next round.
In this campaign, Higgins scored two hundred-breaks (126, 135) and three 50-plus shots (73, 58, 92). The total number of hundred-breaks in his career has reached 998, just shy of the 1000-break milestone. Two strokes away.
In an interview after the game, when talking about the milestone of breaking 100 strokes in his career, Higgins said: "I am getting closer and closer to breaking 100 strokes in 1,000 strokes, and I am really willing to play here. The Shanghai Masters is a prestigious event tournament, no offense to some of the other qualifiers, but I don't want to play it out in a qualifier somewhere else because there's no crowd cheering, so if it can be done in the next round against Shaun Murphy, then that's it. It was so special and obviously the next round was the best scenario because the crowd was so enthusiastic.”
