facing

Lim met Englishman Humphries in the first round of the 2021 World Championship and, on that occasion, Lim was a 3-2 winner.

The odds of a repeat are unlikely, given Humphries – who is 41 years younger than Lim – has gone on to have a spell of nearly two years as world number one and won multiple major titles, including the world crown in January 2024.

“If anything, I’m thankful for Paul winning that game because it changed me as a player and it changed me as a person,” Humphries said after beating Ted Evetts in round one.

“Three months later, I’d lost about four stones and I was in a major final [at the 2021 UK Open]. It helped my career.”

On those comments, Lim said: “To come across a champion who is as humble as him – when he said that, it was really a compliment to me. I’ve got nothing ever bad to say about Luke.

“With every defeat or every win, there is a spark somewhere – you’ve got to find it to spark you in the right direction. I can’t say that loss made him a world champion, but maybe it created that spark within himself to look at something differently and it turned out well for him.

“He is definitely a different Luke Humphries. He was good then, now he is great. It’s an honour to hear him calling me a legend.”

SIMON Cowell could be locked in another copyright row after it emerged a group of British rockers also share the same name as his newly formed group.

Tattooed Scottish band December Tenth told the music mogul to get his lawyers to call them over the name dispute.

This week Netflix announced his new show Next Act will feature his latest band – December 10.

The seven-piece group – which conissits of Nicolas Alves, 16, Cruz Lee-Ojo, 19, Hendrik Christoffersen, 19, John Fadare, 17, Josh Olliver, 17, Danny Bretherton, 16, and Seán Hayden, 19 – released their new music earlier this week.

But they have an unexpected rivalry in the form of the Glasgow-based metallers, who are named after the date their pen pal was executed on death row.

They have challenged Simon after he and Netflix announced the new boy band with a very similar name to their group.

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In a post on social media the lead singer of the band said: “It came to light over the last few days that Simon Cowell, Netflix and Universal Music, are involved in a new boy band that share, to some extent, our name December Tenth.

“Now if anyone in Simon’s team, Universal or Netflix, would like to get in touch with ourselves and our legal team they can do so.

“I would like to point out, the hundreds of new followers we have over the last few days are most welcome, but I’m not entirely sure they are all genuine.”

The band, who formed in 2020, have also been swamped with messages with confused boy band fans who mistakenly followed them online.

He added: “Our social media accounts have blew up and we had no idea why. It turns out that Simon Cowell has released a new Netflix show, called “December 10”.

“We are now being inundated with well wishes from fans of the show thinking we are that band.”

It’s not the first time Simon has faced issues over a pop group’s name.

In 2011 X Factor was forced to change their girl band Rhythmix to Little Mix after a disabled children’s charity in Brighton with the same name threatened them with legal action.