Allister Carter beats Jamie Burnett in Shanghai Masters snooker final

Allister Carter's 10-7 victory over Jamie Burnett to win the Shanghai Masters gave him his second ranking title, £60,000 and second place behind Neil Robertson, the world champion, in the provisional world rankings. John Higgins, the runaway No1 before his six‑month suspension, falls to third and will also miss the World Open later this month but will return in time for December's UK Championship. After winning the last two frames of the afternoon and the first of the evening to lead 6-4 Carter was always at least a frame ahead and from 8-7 prevailed without further loss. Burnett earned £30,000 for reaching the first final of his 18‑year professional career but remains under the cloud of an investigation prompted by his 9-3 defeat by Stephen Maguire in the 2008 UK Championship, a scoreline on which there was an unusual amount of betting. The procurator fiscal, Scotland's equivalent of the Crown Prosecution Service, holds the Strathclyde Police's original report into the matter and has asked for further inquiries to be made.