The player that impressed me the most in finishing the year of snooker was Lisbon Open champion and UK Championship semi-finalist Stephen Maguire. After beating Chinese players Lu Ning and Yu DeLu in the early stages of the UK Championship at the back end of November, Stephen turned on the style to beat Mark Williams in the Last 32, before then beating David Morris in the Last 16 and Marco Fu in the quarter-finals, eventually losing out in the last 4 in a close match against Judd Trump. That clearly gave him some confidence going into the Lisbon Open European Tour 5 event a week later, playing his first 3 games on the Saturday where he struggled past Sanderson Lam, before then thrashing Robin Hull and Barry Pinches. On the Sunday Stephen began proceedings in the Last 16 beating John Higgins 4-2 in a tough match, before then overcoming Noppon Saengkham in the quarter-finals. Arguably his best performance of the tournament came in the semi-finals where he whitewashed Mark Davis (who only managed 18 points in the match). From there he was a huge favourite to beat Matt Selt in the final, and despite being 1-0 down and pulled back to 2-2 in the final he was too good for Matt in the end winning 4-2.
These were some of my picks of the Scot’s performances in
December:
Stephen Maguire 6-2 Mark Williams – Stephen Maguire hadn’t
been at the top of his game coming into these UK Championships, without a good
run in a big event for some time, and he could well have gone out the round
before to Yu De Lu. Mark Williams had been playing very well as he showed on
the way to the International Championship semi-finals and I predicted that Mark
would win this one before the match began. As the match started though you could
see that would be a different story as Maguire couldn’t miss at the start of
the game. A break of 64 gave him the opener before a wonderful 132 made it 2-0.
Williams won the next to get on the board, but a one visit frame again for
Maguire with a break of 90 made it 3-1 at the mid-session break. A break of 51
from the Welshman stole the fifth frame on the black and that could’ve been the
turning point at 3-2. Stephen didn’t let it affect him though and a couple of
one visit frames followed for Maguire as runs of 87 and 80 put him just a frame
away from victory at 5-2. After those frames you could see that Williams knew
the task ahead of him would be incredibly tough and he did have chances in
frame eight, but he couldn’t take them and Maguire killed off the match to win
6-2 in a much more comfortable outcome than I expected.
Stephen Maguire 4-0 Mark Davis – Stephen Maguire carried
that form on to the Lisbon Open and by the time he met Mark Davis in the
semi-finals he must have been thinking about picking up his first title of any
kind since the Welsh Open back in February 2013, and that could well have put
him under extra pressure coming into this match against a very solid player in
Mark Davis. Stephen Maguire was in a determined mood though, and Mark Davis was
unable to get his foot in the door of this match. Stephen had runs of 47 and 49
to take the opening frame and a couple of 42’s in the second doubled his lead
in quick style. A 52 in the third put the Scot a frame from the final and it
didn’t take long for him to kill this one off as a break of 81 won him the
fourth in one visit to beat Davis 4-0 who could only manage 18 points in the
match.
As brilliant a player as Stephen Maguire is and a very
fluent player to watch when at the very top of his game but you have to say
that Maguire has not won as much in his career as he should’ve done. However,
2014 was not his greatest year for the most part, but by the time he ended he
was “on fire” as his nickname goes. The job for Maguire now is to take that form
into 2015 and get another big ranking title under his belt, as well as
consolidating his top 16 ranking which is still in a little bit of danger
hovering around the 16 mark when you take off his Welsh Open winners money from
2 seasons ago. We all know that Stephen Maguire has tons of ability and
should’ve won more than he has, but now is the time for him to start cashing in
his career like Selby and Murphy around his age need to continue doing as well
having done the hard work to get where they are now in the game.
Tomorrow then it's time for me to publish my final order from the 12 candidates I've revealed from the years snooker so far and decide on my Player of the Year for 2014, so be sure to come back and have a read.
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