It’s fair to say that Stephen Maguire wasn’t offering any excuses after being whitewashed by Kyren Wilson at the UK Championship. After coming through qualifying, Maguire was expected to represent a tricky test for the current world champion, only for Wilson to romp home 6-0.
But it wasn’t the performance of the Englishman, who only made two half-century breaks despite his resounding win, that was in the spotlight afterwards.
Instead, much of the focus was on a calamitous display by 2004 winner Maguire, who could only make a high break of 32.
And the former world No.2 wasn’t in the mood to go easy on himself afterwards, lambasting his display to the BBC. “Rubbish, there’s nothing more I can say,” he replied, when asked to summarise his effort. “Just garbage.
“It’s a hard one to take, what can you do? Just go home and see what the next day brings. I can’t explain it, you can’t explain that, it’s one of the worst performances ever. I’m struggling to believe how bad that was.”
Maguire, 43, beat Artemijs Zizins in his first provisional match, before sealing a place in the main draw in a final frame cliffhanger with Elliot Slesser. But those wins proved a false dawn, and he also implied his harrowing showing would now see him contemplate his future in the sport.
“I either think of what I’m doing in this game or I push forwards and do some hard graft,” he said. “Everything is a bit of a blur from the second frame onwards. That was poor, there’s no other words.
“I still despise getting beaten, but I also despise playing like that. There’s getting beaten and there’s not showing up. For me to enjoy it, I need to play well and be competitive.”
To compound matters for Maguire, Wilson crusaded through despite seemingly suffering with a migraine. He revealed afterwards that he needed to take medication after the first two frames as he was struggling to focus.
“It felt like my head was going to explode,” he said. “It was something I had to overcome and thankfully my brother got me some headache tablets and I was able to get it under control.”
Wilson will now play Chris Waken in the last-16, and will be eying a real chance to go all the way in the Triple Crown event for the first time. Four of the 16 seeded players have been eliminated over the opening two days, including 2023 champion Ronnie O’Sullivan and Mark Selby.
