Fu beats Maguire

Former UK champion Maguire trailed 5-1, but closed the gap to 5-4 as a break of 142 in the ninth frame saw him overtake Mark King's highest break target of 139 in an often tense struggle in the first round.

In the end, it was all in vain as an increasingly twitchy looking Fu held himself together long enough to stagger over the finishing line in the 10th frame.

Maguire failed to escape from a snooker three times that left him needing a snooker.

Maguire hit the black from another snooker moments later before conceding as he tried in vain to hit the yellow.

“I’m happy with that performance, especially in the early part of the match when I played quite well,” said Fu. “Towards the end, I kind of lost my concentration, and Stephen played really well in making some good breaks. He kept put me under pressure, and I was really happy to win the last frame.

“My concentration started to go, and I became too relaxed later on. I started to take things for granted for a few frames, and I need to change that for the next match.

“This is the second biggest tournament for us. The public may think that the draw is wide open, but the players don’t look it like that. The players left are either better than me, or as good as me - it is going to be tough.”

Runs of 109 and 117 were the highlight of the evening from the man from Hong Kong in ending Maguire's bid to reach the semi-finals for a third straight year.

The Scot should have closed the gap to 4-2, but a botched positional shot on the final red enabled Fu to steal a frame he looked likely to lose in building a 5-1 lead.

Fu faces a quarter-final match with Peter Edbon, a player who defeated him 6-2 in the first round of last year's tournament.

Fu pocketed the opening frame against Maguire with a break of 54, despite missing a straight pot on a pink early on.

He looked poised to move 2-0 ahead, but saw a routine black stay up enabling Maguire to contribute a closing 46 to level at 1-1.

Fu polished off the colours to pinch the third frame for a 2-1 lead before an immaculate 109 break saw him head to the mid-session interval 3-1 ahead.

Fu had the chance to set a new highest break total when he slammed in a plant after Maguire had played a praiseworthy safety shot.

Fu reached 117, but put too much pace on the white in trying to travel up the table for position on the yellow from the black.

That cost him a possible 145 break, but he managed to extend his lead to 5-1 in the next frame after Maguire snookered himself trying to get on the final red from the black.

The former UK champion hammered the white off the table in frustration after hitting the red.

Fu played a telling safety that forced Maguire to foul before he mopped up the final red and colour to move to within one frame of the victory.

Maguire made runs of 46, 53, 74 and 142 as Fu, who broke off in the ninth and tenth frames without the referee noticing, blew a series of obvious opportunities.

Maguire was destined to come up agonisingly short in a tenth frame that ran for 45 minutes before finally falling in favour of Fu.