Scotland’s Stephen Maguire hits semi-final victory over Stephen Lee: 2012 China Open
Tremendous snooker display from the Scottish potter, Stephen Maguire brought him on top of Stephen Lee in the first semi-final clash of the 2012 China Open snooker tournament at the Beijing University Students Gymnasium arena. The Scotsman completely outplayed
the winner of the 2011-12 Players Tour Championship (PTC) Grand Finals by an easy score line of 6-2.
With his outstanding victory over the Englishman, Maguire has successfully made his way into the finals of the event where he will be facing the winner of second semi-final encounter between the former World Snooker Champion, England’s Peter Ebdon and the
2012 Welsh Open winner, China’s Ding Junhui. The Scot is looking for a tussling final match as he has struggled to get to where he is now.
The Maguire-Lee semi-final clash began with some fireworks from the Maggi as he cruised into 2-0 lead quickly after beating the Englishman in the first two frames. Despite tumbling two frames down, Lee was not under any pressure and replied back brilliantly
in the next two frames and clinched them to pull level at 2-2 at the end of the first session.
Until the end of Session 1, the match up seemed quite thrilling but it did not turn that way. Maguire took control over the game in the next sessions and clicked four consecutive frames to hit the final victory at 6-2.
Speaking to World Snooker after winning the game, Maguire said, “There's one more match to go now. I've played hard match snooker all week and hopefully I can carry it on to tomorrow and put on a good show for the Chinese fans.”
He added, “I honestly thought it was going to be closer, even if I'd lost. I thought it was going to be maybe 6-4 or 6-5, you just have to prepare for that. It was 2-2 at the interval and I should've been at least 3-1 up and I was quite mad with myself,
which kind of geed me up. That 15 minutes did me the world of good and I managed to play well after 2-2.”
The Scot is now feeling confident after making it to the finals and hopes for good result in the ultimate battle.
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