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Higgins: Jersey joy

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John Higgins defeated Mark Selby 6-3 to win the first event of the new World Series at Fort Regent in Jersey.

Higgins, who beat Selby 18-13 to win his second world title in 2007, was held at 3-3 but pulled away to victory by winning the last three frames with breaks of 72, 104 and 69.

Higgins, beaten in each of his last three meetings by Selby, started the match with runs of 56 and 93 to lead 2-0.

Selby, who rose seven places to fourth in the rankings last season, made a 72 break to win the third, levelled at 2-2 and again made it all square by winning the sixth frame for 3-3.

Quality

But Higgins then stepped up a gear to land the first title of the four-tournament series, which will end with a grand finals weekend in November for which the winner will pocket £56,000.

Speaking after the match, Higgins said: "It was a good standard and I'm delighted to win because Mark's a quality player.

"It's a great confidence boost to win the first event of a series that's hopefully going to get bigger and better. It's a very proud moment.

Higgins had only 45 minutes between his 5-2 semi-final victory over Shaun Murphy and the final.

Shock

He led Murphy 4-0 but struggled to finish him off in a largely disjointed contest in which Murphy made the highest break, just 64.

Selby trailed Gary Britton, the shock conqueror of Ken Doherty in the first round, 2-0 but made a 105 break in recovering to 2-2.

After that, the reigning Wembley Masters and Welsh Open champion had things all his own way and cruised to a 5-2 victory.

The World Series moves on to Berlin on July 12-13 before calling at Warsaw and Moscow later in the year.