体坛英语新闻：Liang drags Higgins to seasaw battle in world snooker championship

SHEFFIELD, April 21 (Xinhua) -- China's Liang Wenbo overcame an early 0-2 slump to John Higgins and fought back to narrow the gap to 4-5 in the opening round of the world snooker championship on Saturday.

Higgins, the defending champion, won a scrappy opening frame then went 2-0 up with a break of 70.

Liang, who had lost all the three meets with the Scottish before the tournament, pulled one back with a 64 to 1-2.

The 25-year-old star got the snooker he needed on the pink in frame four, but only seeing Higgins pot a cracking long pink for 3-1.

After the interval, Liang, a former Shanghai Masters finalist who is currently ranked 38th, gave no chance to the four-time winners of the championship, winning three straight frames with top runs of 64, 43 and 49 to overtake the lead to 4-3.

The nicknamed Scottish wizard showed his magic when he made a trademark 72 clearance for 4-4, and then never looked back to retain the lead.

The second session of the opponents will be staged on tonight.

If Liang aims to upset the home supported favorite at the Crucible Theatre, he still needs six more frame wins to progress to the last 16 in the best of 19 frames.

The championship, running from April 21 to May 7, is the most influential event of world snooker.

China's top player Ding Junhui, who entered the semifinals last year, will start the 2012 campaign on April 24 and try to go further this time for his first world title.

The 25-year-old Ding has so far collected trophies of the Masters and UK championship, which were tipped as the "big three" events of a snooker season along with the world championship.