Wyldecrest Park Welsh Open 2011: Mark Williams faces Stephen Maguire in quarterfinal
Current German Masters champion, Wales’s own, Mark Williams, will meet the Scotsman, Stephen Maguire, in the last-8 match of Wyldecrest Park Welsh Open 2011 at Newport Centre.
Both players are in great form so far. The quarter-final will be the best-of-9 frames match as per new format of Welsh Open 2011.
Williams and Maguire won their last-16 matches yesterday to Jamie Cope 4-0 and Stephen Hendry 4-3 respectively. Williams whitewashed Jamie with complete dominance over the match.
The Welsh “Potting Machine” clinched all four frames comprehensively with frame scores 70-34, 108-0, 54-53 and 83-0. The two-times world champion – 2000 and 2003 – took less than an hour to book his place in the quarter-finals stage of the tournament.
In the first frame both Williams and Jamie struggled a bit to build momentum, which eventually William won 70-34.
The next frame was William-dominated and finished in a blink of an eye. The Welsh fired a confident century break of 108 after he was given an opportunity and clinched the frame in one-visit 108-0 to take a 2-0 lead in the match.
The third frame was a balanced one before Williams missed the final brown giving Jamie a chance to take the frame but to Jamie’s misfortune, he missed the final black when he was only 6 points ahead.
William needed the black to win the frame and so he did by potting the black and built a 3-0 lead.
The Welsh “Potting Machine” took the next frame 83-0 and thus booked a spot in the last-eight against Stephen Maguire.
On the other hand, Stephen Maguire defeated his compatriot and 7-time world champion, Stephen Hendry, in a thriller 4-2.
The match had extreme excitement from the start when Hendry shocked Maguire and the spectators with the highest break of 147 – 10th of his career that levels with Ronnie O’Sullivan – and took the first frame in one-visit.
However, Maguire gathered some courage and fought back taking three consecutive frames 68-61, 129-0 and 85-21 with a century break of 129 in the third frame to take the lead 3-1. Stephen Hendry bounced back in the 5th frame winning it 48-68 but
it was not his day.
Maguire easily clinched the last frame hitting a 55 break and sealed his place in the quarter-final against Mark Williams.
The quarter-final will start not before 1pm. Both Williams and Maguire are looking forward to the Welsh Open title and whoever goes ahead will be decided at Newport Centre.
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