Defending champion Judd Trump beat John Higgins 5-2 to reach the quarter-finals of the Wuhan Open – despite taking another player’s cue into the arena after the mid-session interval.
Leading 3-1, Trump alerted the referee as he was about to break off for the fifth frame and told Higgins that he had inadvertently picked up the wrong cue.
“My cue was in the case I think, but Ben [Woollaston] put his cue next to my case,” Trump said to the Scot as he was reunited with his own cue, with Higgins seeing the funny side of the mix-up.
World number one Trump went on to win the fifth frame to go 4-1 up and although four-time world champion Higgins responded with a break of 126, Trump wrapped up a victory to set up a quarter-final meeting with either fellow Englishman Chris Wakelin or China’s Ding Junhui.
In an interview with the World Snooker Tour, the 35-year-old said: “I have never done that before. It was a bit of a shock.
“It wasn’t until I really got to the table that I noticed. I was going to break off and the cue felt strange, so I looked down and it wasn’t my cue.
“Luckily for me, John was very nice about it and he just told me to wait as long as possible.
“I think it has happened before and someone got awarded the frame, but John was nice enough just to allow me enough time to get my cue back.”
Woollaston lost his last-16 match 5-3 to Long Zehuang, while Jack Lisowski beat Wu Yize 5-0 to reach the quarter-finals.
Shaun Murphy is also through to the last eight after beating last year’s runner-up Ali Carter in a final-frame decider.
