Ronnie O'Sullivan's emphatic 9-4 victory over John Higgins, the defending champion, gave him the Regal Scottish Masters title for the third time in five years and his 26th victory from his 34th professional final.

O'Sullivan's very best is virtually unanswerable and he has become much more interested "to try to minimise how bad it is when I have a dodgy spell. I still have weaknesses I need to work on if I'm going to be the complete player. Tiger Woods has shown the way."

The world No1 came to Glasgow with no hint of the depression that drags him down from time to time. He was fresh, keen, eager and consistently "making some seriously heavy breaks in practice".

He topped and tailed his 6-3 semi-final win over Stephen Hendry on Saturday evening with a trio of stunning frames and began similarly yesterday, leading 3-0 in only 32 minutes.

Although Higgins made a break of 100 in the fourth, he found himself 5-1 down, but reduced this to 5-4 before O'Sullivan surged to the £65,000 first prize. O'Sullivan made 10 breaks over 40 - 112 and 91 the highest.

Higgins, with five breaks over 60, and Stephen Lee, with efforts of 98 and 139 - to take the £5,000 highest-break prize - had both scored heavily in the Scot's 6-4 semi-final victory, but Higgins said, despite a full house, that yesterday's contest "didn't seem like a final. Ronnie outplayed me. The chances I had, I didn't take."

Higgins mustered no further resistance after failing to snatch the 12th to limit the lead to 7-5. Having attacked a 52-0 deficit with a run of 43, he failed both at the penultimate red and the last red. His 15th defeat from his 39th final nevertheless brought him £32,000.