The 2014 Masters (Day 2) - Fu-rious Marco exits Trump, Maguire fires victory over Perry

Fu in top form

Another day on the green baize, another two very interesting and quite dramatic snooker encounters.

Judd Trump, though in not such a great form this season, but as usual favourite to win matches, saw his hopes shattered as a very furious Marco Fu beat him by a typical 6-5 to get a place in the quarter-finals, while Stephen Maguire fired his anger towards "The Gentleman" Joe Perry and ended his early Masters dream by 6-4.

Everyone was expecting the match were Judd Trump and Marco Fu were the two main characters, for we all knew fireworks were in order. And we weren't disappointed.

Although he started with his left foot, Trump leaving the opener to go into his opponent's bag due to missing the frame ball, he was quick enough to draw level and even go one ahead, by using a 87 break.

Trump's Masters dream ends in the first round

But the mid-session interval found the boys all square at two apiece, the situation being changed only by Fu's 138 that put him in the lead.

Still, this wasn't an acceptable situation for Judd who grabbed the following two frames (and hit a century in the process) to go 4-3 up.

Fu backfired and won the next two frames to go one away from victory, minutes after a great 101 from Trump forced the decider to take place.

A tricky missed black and 78 points later Fu was winning by 6-5, thus getting a well-deserved place in the next round.

The second snooker encounter of the day was another interesting match, the ever-fire-breathing-dragon from Scotland (yeah, I know that the Dragon represents Wales, but I had to make a connection between the on-fire Maguire and ... well, Maguire) managing to overcome the "Gentleman “Joe Perry by 6-4.

On-fire Maguire, at least for the 1st part of the match

Still, the interesting bit was that the first part of the match was a real crack, while the second one seemed like a scene from Selby v. Selby match.

Great breaks of 112 and 80 were securing the first two frames of the match for Maguire, while Perry was responding with a courageous 78 break to grab his first frame. And he would have continued on that note, if he wasn't stopped by missing a horrible red during the fourth frames, hence the scoreline became 3-1 at the interval.

After the mini-break a very-different Maguire, totally unfocused and gone (with the wind probably) scrapped his way to win the next two frames and go just one away from victory.

Great effort from the "Gentleman", but a bit too late

It was 5-1 and it looked ominous, but Perry wasn't giving up his dream, so with runs of 46, 27 and a great 106 he was pulling back no less than three consecutive frames!!! Now, that's something!

Sadly for him though and luckily for Maguire the next frame marked the end of this cue-crossing, runs of 28 and 37 putting the best player where he belongs: in the winners' lounge (aka. the QFs, if in doubt)

Tomorrow, or on Tuesday (depending on when you read this) the battle continues with:

1pm Ding Junhui v Shaun Murphy
7pm Ronnie O'Sullivan v Robert Milkins
*UK time