Maguire Ends Williams Run
Mark Williams lost his chance to become the first player in eight years to win back-to-back world ranking titles but he admitted a bad match was due after losing five-frames-to-three against Stephen Maguire in the Wyldecrest Parks Welsh Open in Newport.
Welsh ace Williams had won eleven out of his last twelve ranking matches and had not dropped a frame in the first two matches of his ‘home’ event with victories over Hong Kong's Marco Fu and Stoke potter Jamie Cope.
But history repeated itself as Scotland’s Maguire repeated his win over the former double world champion at the same stage of the competition twelve months ago.
It was a scrappy match, full of kicks unforced errors, yet Williams hit breaks of 54 and 45 to gain a one-frame advantage after three.
Williams led by 54 points in the fourth and looked likely to take a two frame lead at the mid-session interval. However, the worst of the bad contacts stopped him in his tracks, leaving Maguire to dish up with a 65.
A 63 break put the Cwm potter back in command when play resumed but that was as far as he got, with Maguire cracking a 105 break to level and a 68 to go within one frame of the victory.
However, the Scot had the biggest slice of luck he could have wished for in the final frame - and one which turned the game his way.
He missed a straight forward brown into the bottom pocket so badly that it never actually touched the jaws of the pocket.
The blue ball was Maguire’s saving grace as the cue ball came to rest almost touching and leaving the Welsh ace hampered cueing on an otherwise simple red.
With no alternative shot available, Williams had to fully commit using the spider he tried to drop the straight red into the pocket, only to miss, leaving it hanging and give Maguire the chance to finish off.
Williams accepted the defeat had to happen sometime in his season, which has been superb. He said: "I knew it was going to come. A performance like that was due but it wasn't that bad, in all fairness.
"The monstrous kicks cost me a couple of frames and then, in the last, he has had a brown to win the match and the cue-ball has finished up dead straight by the blue. I can't grumble. I tried my best.
"He played ok but he knows he will have to play better than that in the semis. I probably lost to the better player in the match. There wasn't much in it."
He was happy enough just to have reached the quarter-final stage, adding: "You have to enjoy every tournament and not worry about it when you get beaten."
Williams is not looking ahead to the China Open, Players Tour Championships final in Dublin or the Betfred.com World Championships in Sheffield in April but Maguire says the resurgent Welshman will be among the players to beat at The Crucible.
"I have just beaten the man in form. I would say it is between him and John Higgins as favourites, although Ronnie (O'Sullivan) is always there," said Maguire, who now plays Leicester's Mark Selby for a place in the final on Saturday.
And he admitted that missing the brown only for the cue-ball to roll safe next to the blue was 'the biggest bit of luck I have had this week'.
"If that does not land there, then Mark clears up automatically because I've had my chance. That was better than a fluke, to be honest.
"Today was a big match because I have not been to the semis for a while. That was in the back of my mind a lot - and, obviously, you want to still be part of the tournament."
