Ronnie O'Sullivan and John Higgins were in London today to launch the 2010 Betfred.com World Snooker Championship.
Defending champion Higgins and World No 1 O'Sullivan, who have each lifted the famous World trophy on three occasions, were at the RAC Club to meet the media and discuss their chances of winning this year's event.
The tournament runs from April 17 to May 3 at the Crucible
Theatre in Sheffield, with the likes of Stephen Hendry, Steve Davis, Mark Selby, Neil Robertson and Ding Junhui also fighting for the title and a share of the £1.1million prize fund.
"It's going to be tough but I would love to win it again," said Higgins. "Snooker has a buzz about it which we have not had for a long time and hopefully we can get more people involved in the game."
O'Sullivan added: "John and I have got three titles each, Stephen Hendry's got seven and Steve Davis and Ray Reardon have got six, so to get to four would be great. I think this is the most open World Championship we've seen. The titles have been shared around this season and the standard is very high.
"Mark Williams won in China last week, he's got the pedigree and the game. John, on his day, has the best all-round game and he will be hard to stop.
"It's a great event, everyone gets hooked on snooker during the 17 days, like they do with tennis during Wimbledon or athletics during the Olympics."
