2016 German Masters (Day 2) - Maguire beats defending champ

The second day of the 918.com German Masters brought with it a lot of surprises, amongst them Mark Selby losing the chance to defend his Berlin title (whom he won after a thriller final against Shaun Murphy back in 2015).

Selby met Stephen Maguire in a high-quality match in his quest for a place in the quarters and despite the fact that the cues battle started on a pretty balanced note, it finished on a 5-3 scoreline in favour of the Scottish player.

The opening frame was carefully grabbed by Selby with a consistent 90 break, to which Maguire responded with a 68 to draw level.

As the interval was about to start the scoreboard was showing a perfect 2-2 thanks to Selby's 87 contribution and Maguire's 54 break from frame four.

15 minutes later, Selby restored his lead by firing in runs of 45 and 58 and following the pre-established pattern, Maguire caught up with him for a 3-3 scoreline.

But here is where things started changing as Stephen used frame seven to take the lead for the first time since the start of the match, to which he added a 67 to close the deal at 5-3.

Other shocking results were recorded as both Mark Allen and Marco Fu left the competition, Mark losing 5-2 in front of his namesake, Mark Joyce, while Marco was defeated 5-1 by Kurt Maflin.

The current world champion, Stuart Bingham managed to get pass Ireland's Fergal O'Brien with a 5-2 scoreline, although the story was far from easy.

The match made its début with Bingham's 109 break, but the pace of the cues crossing was seriously slowed down during the second frame, which although was clinched by the Englishman, witnessed only a top break of 20.

Still, as things were looking to slip away for O'Brien he managed to hit an 82 break and even add a perfect 113 clearance to enter into the mid-session interval all square at two apiece.

At returning into the arena, Bingham managed to restore his lead by taking a pretty scrappy fifth frame before drama kicked off.

O'Brien had a huge chance to draw level but missed a pink to the right middle pocket, which pretty much stopped his break at just 46, this giving Bingham a lifeline which he fully took advantage of.

Despite a scoreline which favoured his opponent (47-54), Bingham keep his head straight and potted the last pink and black to go one away from a place in the next round.

The history repeated itself during the next frame, as Bingham won it also on the black for a final 5-2 scoreline.

The same result was recorded by Belgium's Luca Brecel in front of Zhao Xintong.

Luca took the first two frames of the match with top breaks of 52 and 92, his Chinese opponent only managing to win a frame by the end of the first session.

After the mini-break, Brecel extended his lead at 4-1, this time Zhao managing to have a more consistent contribution (under the form of a 63 break) and win his second frame of the match.

Sadly for him though, it was also the last one, as Luca scored in style with a 88 break to end the Chinese player's dream. 

The cue action continues today too, so please be sure to check out the matches schedule.