World Championship 2011 - Day 3 - Hawkins beats Maguire after thrilling match

Barry Hawkins defeats Stephen Maguire

One more player was reach the Last 16 round as Barry Hawkins succeeded in beating the one and only runner-up of this year’s Welsh Open Stephen Maguire 10-9, after a thrilling match that saw the de Scotsman coming back from being 8-4 down.
At the near table another tight battle was given between Peter Ebsdon and Stuart Bingham, the boys ending their first session an a 5-4 result in favor of the last named player.


With a first session ended on a 6-3 lead in favor of the Englishman Hawking, Maguire had a lot to do in order to make that needed comeback and although he didn’t do it right away, he eventually succeeded it.
The first frame of the second session was won by Maguire, but Hawkins was anxious to get to the finish line so he won the next two in order to extend his dominancy at 8-4, using breaks of 53 and 71.


But that was about it for the Englishman as Scotland was going to fight back! :-)) Four frames were going to be cashed by Maguire with top breaks of 64, 50 and 58. Tremendous effort! To keep it cool that way and make that glorious comeback after being behind most of the match, that’s something you must admire.

Peter Ebdon wants the victory

Still, Hawkins didn’t give up his hopes on winning and wasn’t discouraged by his opponent sudden comeback, so he hit a 62 in order to smell the victory from a 9-8 scoreline. The tension was floating in the air as Maguire took the next frame and forced the match into a decider, but as soon as the Englishman started potting those balls all was clear...he was going to win that last frame. A break of 92 proved us right and Barry is through to the Last 16 round! Great performance from the OnQ Promotion’s boy, but my congratulations to Maguire also for he did a pretty good job out there :-P


The last match of the day was actually a match by half, because Peter Ebdon and Stuart Bingham were disputing their first session. A session that was tight as hell!
Stuart was the one who broke the ice as he took over the first frame, only to see Ebbo flying away two points ahead with a top break of 93. Still, by the end of the first session things were all square as Bingham took the fourth frame to set the scoreline at 2-2.

After that mini-break of 15 minutes Peter stormed in as to take the following two frames and set his lead at 4-2 ahead of Stu, but his rival succeeded in winning the next three frames with runs of 50, 79 and 55 in order to draw and take the lead 5-4.


Day 4 has more snooker surprises for you guys, so here’s the programme:


10:00 (UK time)


14:30 (UK time)


19:00 (UK time)
*the second session


TV coverage: