Maguire wins in Gloucester

Magus on fire again

Sunday evening Stephen Maguire recorded a well-fought 4-3 victory in front of Jack Lisowski, in order to win the UK PTC Event One from Gloucester and thus proving he's really into these type of mini-tournaments (the Scotsman won last season's PTC 12 event by beating Joe Perry 4-2).

An at least three days unshaved Maguire started his UK PTC 1 journey by taking on his country-man Eden Sharav, whom he crashed 4-0, Paul Davison who got a 4-1 "cue approach", then followed by another decisive and irrevocable 4-0 in front of Gary Wilson, only to see him taking down yet another opponent, this time Andrew Pagett by 4-2, in order to qualify for the quarter-finals.

Here, he had a lot of trouble catching up with Barry Hawkins and his incredible restless cue style of playing snooker, but he finally prevailed to beat the reigning Australian Open champion by 4-3, only to have a much smoother run by meeting Andrew Higginson in the semis, whom he beat 4-1.

The final against Lisowski wasn't by any means an easy one, mainly because the young lad was on top of his form, having beat names like Mark Williams and even his best mate and practicing partner, Judd Trump in the previous rounds.

It was clear right from the beginning that this was going to be an old time cue crossings affair, with both players ready to give the other one the final shot.

Jack Lisowski's form will defo bring him a trophy very soon

The one who broke the ice was Maguire, after Lisaowski missed a red at 31, the Scotsman's 84 break being more than sufficient to give him the first frame. However, Lisowski fought back and with a break of 70 point equalised the situation at 1-1.

Another over half century break, this time a 75, was putting Maguire in the lead at 2-1 while a brilliant clearance of just 26 points from the Englishman was drawing level once more.

From this point on the scrappiness became part of the game, but it was such a lovely and entertaining one. Impossible to take your eyes of it, in my opinion, as you could cut the tension with the knife, if that's even possible.

Once more Maguire managed to put his nose back in front at 3-2, but two runs of 26 and 25 were sending the match into a decider, Lisowski proving to be hard to intimidate even if this was the first time he reached a professional event final.

Focusing on winning

The last frame started pretty well for the Scotsman, that until the black refused to enter into the right pocket and stayed on the table, breaking the fluency of his game at just 16 points.

After safety shots and a few more points scored by the Scotsman, the table and the final's faith for that matter, seemed to be at Lisowski's mercy as the youngster started potting feverishly one ball after another. But surprise, surprise! He missed the yellow on 56 and left his green baize rival with a great chance to clear up.

And so he did, Maguire clearing the table for victory and for winning the first UK PTC Event One title.

Maguire, glady receiving his UK PTC Event One trophy

As an end note to this cue story, I must say that watching this match brought me a kind of déjà-fu felling. It kind of resemblance the 2011 World Championship final, between a heavy name of the green baize and a very experienced player John Higgins (in our case Stephen Maguire) and one very eager to compete and the master of taking on the most incredible shots ever, Judd Trump (in our case Jack Liswoski).

The conclusion was the same as one year ago, with the more experienced player winning, but it kind of left me with the same felling like before, namely that the younger player is very close from putting him name on a ranking event trophy.