Liam Highfield Unfazed By Injury, Illness And Tour Survival: 'I Just Love Snooker'

2023 Wuhan Open - Day 3 — Liam Highfield will not be ruffled by World Snooker Tour survival (Picture: Getty Images)

‘The oddest thing about playing sport is when people ask you how the snooker’s going before they ask you how you are. I struggle with that. It’s strange. It’s like, is that before me?’

Liam Highfield has been through a lot in his career so far, but his outlook on the game is refreshing, loving snooker more than ever, while recognising that it is actually not the be-all and end-all.

The 33-year-old has had something of a nightmare season, breaking his wrist in the summer and finding himself at World Championship qualifying needing to win three matches to retain the professional status he has held since 2010.

‘It still isn’t perfect now, I broke my wrist in September so it’s been a long time,’ Highfield told Metro.

‘I was on an e-scooter, coming back from practice, I was flying down the road and someone jumped out at me, I tried to go round him and went over the handlebars.

‘I can obviously play but it’s still stiff and sore. I broke my scaphoid bone, which is apparently one of the bones that takes the longest to heal in the body. So even though it’s set and back together they reckon it could be 10-12 months to be back to normal.

‘That’s the main reason [for poor results], I struggled after that injury and fell into a bit of a bad time. It got me down, then results don’t go your way and you do start struggling.’

Highfield has long had to deal with physical and mental issues during his career, with Crohn’s disease seeing him in and out of hospital in his twenties, while he has also learned to deal with OCD which brings about anxiety.

Thankfully, all those concerns are under control at the moment, learning to look at his obsessive nature as a positive.

‘I’ve struggled mentally over the years a little bit with snooker,’ he said. ‘I’ve got OCD, so that gives me anxiety sometimes, but I’m on top of that now, I’ve had a bit of therapy.

‘Maybe playing a sport like snooker you’ve got to have a bit of that. You’ve got to be quite obsessive to get any good at it because it’s so difficult.

‘The guy I was working with said that the same thing that makes me bad makes me good at something. I understood that. It’s just about managing it.’

Despite various setbacks, Highfield’s outlook on his sport is positive to say the least, with his feathers completely unruffled by a tough year in terms of form and results.

He goes to World Championship qualifying this week confident in his game, but if he does drop off the professional tour he doesn’t reckon it is as dramatic as others do.

‘My game’s still there,’ he said. ‘It’s mad because people keep saying to me, “Oh, you’re falling off the tour” and this and that. I’ve got a long career, it’s alright. It’s not the end of the world.

‘It seems to be bothering other people more that it’s bothering me. Snooker players seem to think being on or off the tour is life and death, but it’s not. I’ve been through patches like this before and I always come through them.

‘I just love snooker, so it’s not a big thing. I don’t care if I play at the Crucible or anywhere else, I just enjoy playing snooker. I love it like I did when I was a kid.’

Highfield is not pretending it is all sunshine and rainbows, but is so passionate about the game itself that he gets through the tough times.

He enjoys the sport more thanks to how he looks at it, but he reckons he might not win as much as he should do as a result.

‘I did fall out of love for a bit, I don’t know if that’s the life away from the table. Travelling, stress, whatever,’ he said. ‘My illness on-and-off through the years hasn’t helped. But I love it now more than I did 10 years ago, I’m more into it now than I was in my twenties. I still feel like a kid when I play snooker.

2023 Wuhan Open - Day 4 — Highfield faces Stuart Carrington in his first qualifying match on Thursday (Picture: Getty Images)

‘It winds me up, it frustrates me, but that’s just part of it. I’ve never played snooker for material things or money.

‘I’ve never even played for results, in a way. You watch me play sometimes and you’ll think, “f***ing hell, no wonder he’s not won anything!” Because I’m just playing most of the time for a feeling, how the game makes me feel.

‘It’s probably the wrong way, not a winner’s way, and why I’ve not maybe achieved as much. But I’m probably more content with snooker than a lot of players. Being happy is okay.’

Highfield’s take on the game is reminiscent of Ronnie O’Sullivan’s, with the Rocket often frustrated by his own performance even if he has seemingly won comfortably.

‘If people see me frustrated, it’s not because I’m not winning, it’s because I’m frustrated at the game,’ said Highfield. ‘I’m the same when I’m winning. I’m not buzzing when I’m winning. It’s weird.

‘A lot of people don’t understand where Ronnie’s coming from when he says stuff like that, but I think he makes a lot of sense. Maybe it’s if you’ve had a few struggles with stuff it doesn’t have the same importance to you. For some people it is life or death, but it’s just not.