Liam Highfield

Liam Highfield

Liam Highfield at 2015 German Masters
Born	(1990-12-01) 1 December 1990 (age 26) Swindon, England
Sport country	England
Professional	2010–
Highest ranking	63 (July–August 2011)
Current ranking	80 (as of 18 December 2016)
Career winnings	£126,549
Highest break	139 (2016 World Championship Qualifiers)
Century breaks	51
Best ranking finish	Last 16 (2016 Paul Hunter Classic, 2016 UK Championship)

Liam Highfield (born 1 December 1990) is an English professional snooker player. He turned professional in 2010, after finishing second in the 2009/2010 PIOS rankings. He plays left-handed.

In the 2007/2008 season he won the last event of International Open Series, and finished 12th in the rankings. The following season he finished as number 33.

In the 2009/2010 season he won the second event and was runner-up in the first and sixth event of the International Open Series and finished second in the rankings. Thus, Highfield received a place on the 2010/2011 professional Main Tour.

Highfield began the season ranked number 68 in the world meaning he was required to win four qualifying matches to reach the main stage of the ranking events. He did not manage this throughout the season, coming closest in the first event of the year, the Australian Goldfields Open. He beat Simon Bedford and Xiao Guodong both by deciding frames and received a bye through to the final qualifying round because Steve Davis withdrew. There he lost to Dominic Dale 3–5. He could only win three more matches in qualifying for the remainder of the season and finished it ranked number 66, out of the top 64 who retained their places for the 2012/2013 season.

However, Highfield's performances in the 10 PTC events he played in (where he reached the last 16 twice) were enough to ensure him a spot on the tour for next year.

Highfield reached the final qualifying round of ranking events on two occasions during the 2012/2013 season. The first of these was in World Open qualifying in December, where he beat Daniel Wells 5–2, Barry Pinches 5–1 and Liang Wenbo 5–4. He faced 2002 world champion Peter Ebdon in the final round and, in a match which lasted five hours and 40 minutes, Highfield was edged out 4–5. His other run to the last round was in World Championship qualifying, which saw him defeat Simon Bedford 10–6, Pinches and Jamie Jones both by 10–9 scorelines, before losing 4–10 to Marcus Campbell. Throughout the season Highfield played in nine of the ten Players Tour Championship events, with his best result coming in the sixth European Tour Event, where he saw off Yu Delu, Tony Drago and Dominic Dale, but then lost 1–4 to Kurt Maflin in the last 16. He was placed 69th on the PTC Order of Merit and dropped 10 places in the world rankings during the season to end it world number 76.