Stephen Maguire is accused of ‘jacking it in’ on Dave Gilbert at the Crucible.
Steve Davis and Ken Doherty felt Stephen Maguire “charged” at the end of his World Snooker Championship defeat to Dave Gilbert when he needed just one snooker.
Gilbert won the match 13–8 to reach the semifinals for the second time in his career, his first Final Four appearance since 2019.
Angry Farmer enjoyed a great opening session, going 7-1 on Tuesday morning and it was too much for the Scot to recover from.
After fighting hard to get back into the match, it was a somewhat surprising end to the contest, with Maguire needing one snooker in the final frame, sinking the yellow, and then turning to offer Gilbert his hand.
The white landed awkwardly on the pink, making the shot to the green more difficult, but there was still potentially plenty of life in the shot.
Six-time world champion Steve Davis was certainly surprised when he told the BBC: ‘It was weird. Stephen Maguire just tucked it in at the end when he could have snookered it.
1997 world champion Ken Doherty added: “It takes one snooker, you don’t plug it, it’s the World Cup, anything can happen.
“You win that frame with snooker and the other one twitches a bit. Never give up on a month of Sundays.’
Asked in the post-match press conference why he conceded when he did, Maguire replied: ‘Did you see where I landed?
“It just happened the whole match. I had to get the spider, I’ll never snook it out of that shot. There was no point, it was just a waste of time.’
Unusually, this is the second time Gilbert has shaken hands with his opponent needing just one snooker as Luca Brecel did the same in the first round.
“It was fantastic!” Gilbert said. “I’ll buy Stephen a pint if I ever run into him. No, I was as surprised as anyone as I was with Luca last night.
“I love Luca, he’s an absolute lad. I’ve always been a big fan of Stephen Maguire.
“It’s their decision, their choice, I can’t speak for them. But obviously, you want them to shake your hand and get out of there as quickly as possible.”
Maguire was frustrated with his performance in the competition and missed out on a return to the Crucible semi-finals for the first time since 2012.
‘Very disappointed. I felt like I just handed it to him right there. I will not take any positives from that match,” he said.
“I have to admit that I believed I was going to win that match. I honestly thought I was going to win that match. So the faith is there, I suppose when I look at it that way. But that was a huge arrival on Earth time.’
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