Tom Ford revealed his secret weapon after booting four-time world champion John Higgins out of the UK Championship in a chilly Barbican Centre arena in York – a pair of hand-warmers of the type that you might usually slip inside your gloves on the ski slopes.
The 39-year-old from Leicester remains in the conversation of best player never to win a full ranking title but the world No32 saw off a below-par Higgins 6-4 on Sunday night to set up a last-16 clash with last year’s runner-up Luca Brecel of Belgium.
But with both players struggling badly Ford called for his props that resembled large tea bags and they helped get him over the line as he finished with impressive breaks of 99 and 90.
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Ford said: “I had brought out some hand-warmers to use in the arena because my hands were absolutely freezing. I have always got cold hands anyway, even if I go on holiday.
“And as soon as my hands started to warm up I felt more comfortable and that clearly helped. I have used a cup of hot water to warm my hands like Ronnie O’Sullivan does but the problem with that is your hands can go quite clammy.
“So I have these packets of hand-warmers that I always carry about with me and they really did the trick in this match.
“They basically look like big tea bags, and I have still got them in my pocket now warming my legs up! You take them out of the packet and they get warm from the air.
“When the arena gets colder my hands are like blocks of ice and when they get like that I can hardly feel my cue and I am like a robot. I try to cue, and I can’t. This just makes it feel more natural. I just keep them one in each hand whenever John was at the table.
The world number 32 knocked out three-time UK Champion John Higgins on Sunday night - he's now into the last 16.
#CazooUKChampion | @CazooUK
“I was pleased with the way I wrapped it up against John because to be honest the first five or six frames we were both embarrassing, I think we wanted the ground to open up and swallow us.
“But then at the end I just found a bit of form and told myself ‘just get on with it, quicken up a little bit, don’t think about it too much’ and it seemed to work.
“I dragged him down, then he dragged me down. When you get one player struggling and then the other starts to struggle too…you both just want to get out of there. Luckily I just found an extra gear when it mattered.
“Everyone wants to go out there on a big stage and play well and it is disappointing when you don’t but I was pleased the way I hung in there. People know if I miss a few balls my head can go down and I can start beating myself up. But I battled through it, and am proud of that.
“It is Luca Brecel next for me now, he is a good player and I hope we have a better match than what that one was.
“I have been struggling this season up to now and have not had too many wins at all, but I feel my game may just be coming back. Maybe I took too much time off in the summer and it took me a long time to get back to form. I’m still not quite there, but it is not far away.”
A downbeat and dejected Higgins was in almost monosyllabic mood after the defeat later on Sunday night. On such occasions so soon after leaving the table the emotions are raw and there for all to see, often making such encounters fairly brief.
An understandably disappointed Higgins – who so often in the past 30 years has been a talisman for Scotland and flown the flag with pride for those north of the border in the UK - was not in the frame of mind to comment in detail on the statistic that for the first time since 1987 no Scot has made the last 16 of this tournament.
But with his exit and after a relative rout in qualifying that even saw world No25 Stephen Maguire lose to the 60-year-old Jimmy White, there are grounds for concern. Anthony McGill, an excellent player at his best but now 31, has seen inconsistency stop him kicking on as many expected, and the same could be said for the 28-year-old Scott Donaldson.
Three-time UK winner Ding Junhui, a qualifier this year and therefore arguably the most dangerous first-round draw, knocked out the seeded Barry Hawkins 6-3 – making his 600th career century in the fifth frame, the seventh player to achieve that number.
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