Rocket out of Masters in epic
14th January, 2008
Ronnie O’Sullivan has been knocked out of the Masters in the first round by Stephen Maguire in an amazing 6-5 victory.
The match pitted provisional world number one O'Sullivan against the provisional world number two, and the game did not disappoint once underway. Maguire won the first frame after miraculously escaping from a great O’Sullivan snooker, but the Rocket soon leveled up at 1-1/
Maguire then hit a couple of impressive breaks of 103 and 84 to give him a two-frame lead at 3-1 before taking the scrappy fifth frame to open a commanding lead. O’Sullivan showed he was not about to be rolled over so easily, hitting back with similar breaks of 103 and 72. Maguire then took the eighth frame to make it 5-3. O’Sullivan again took the next two to take it to a deciding frame.
Maguire had built up a 51 point lead in the final frame before allowing O’Sullivan to the table. O’Sullivan forced Maguire to play a shot he didn’t want to, which he duly missed and gave O’Sullivan the lifeline he needed. He cleared every ball on the table, and only needing the blue and pink to progress to the next round, missed a relatively easy blue to hand Maguire the second-round place.
