Apologies for the lack of updates so far today, work unfortunately got in the way. Mark Williams began the day by taking victory against Rory McLeod in the second wildcard match while Shaun Murphy and Stephen Hendry played out a thriller. Click below for the results with more comments to follow later in the evening…
Results from Global Snooker:
Mark Williams 6-2 Rory McLeod
66(45)-21, 55(46)-66(36), 71(56)-40, 57-61, 102(64)-14, 58-55
Shaun Murphy 6-4 Stephen Hendry
78(59)-50, 0-114(114), 4-79(79), 73(61)-6, 66(36)-25, 81(81)-0, 0-104(104), 106(106)-0, 43-70(38), 62-41
Stephen Maguire 6-3 Mark King
55-63, 17-97(78), 63-18, 121(121)-9, 54(45)-66(51), 59-56, 78(78)-37, 92(87)-5, 93(82)-22
Day Two of the 2010 Masters began with the clash between twice former champion Mark Williams and qualifier Rory McLeod, though unfortunately Rory was unable to reproduce the form that booked his spot at the Wembley Arena today. A high break of 32 was never going to be enough to defeat someone of Williams’ class and at 3-1 down by the mid-session interval, he was facing an uphill struggle against the Welsh Potting Machine.
A good start to the tournament for Mark who of course won this tournament for the first time back in 1998 with that epic victory over Stephen Hendry, but he will have to improve tomorrow if he is to overcome the man who beat him at the 2008 UK Championship, Ali Carter.
Today’s second match meanwhile proved to be the match of the tournament so far as Shaun Murphy edged out a returning to form Stephen Hendry 6-4. I must admit that I had expected Stephen to struggle today against someone of Murphy’s class but armed with a new John Parris cue, by all accounts he played as well as he has since the 2009 World Championship when strangely enough he also lost to Murphy. Despite two centuries from the Scot however it was to be Murphy’s day as he sealed the match with a fluked blue following a badly missed green from Hendry. Shaun now awaits the winner of the tie between Williams and Carter.
The final match of the day saw world number two Stephen Maguire make his entrance into the competition with a tie against conqueror of Jimmy White, Mark King. For a while Stephen struggled to get into a rhythm but he improved as the match progressed and won the last four frames with breaks of 87, 82 and 78 to move into the last eight where he will face either Ryan Day or Joe Perry.
Incidentally Stephen Maguire is also using a new cue after he damaged his old one during the UK Championship!