Maguire on fire in title defence

Defending champion Stephen Maguire made an impressive start to the defence of his Travis Perkins UK Championship in York.

The Glaswegian potter won the opening frame of his best-of-17 clash with Belfast’s Joe Swail at York’s Barbican Centre and reeled off five more frames to lead 6-2 after the first session of the pair’s televised last-32 clash.

Swail had briefly pulled things back to 5-2 but Maguire made sure of the last frame to give himself a four-frame cushion.

Maguire had breaks of 42, 69, 95, 58 and 86, while Swail’s top break was just 46.

Seven-time world champion Stephen Hendry struggled to find his feet against Thailand’s James Wattana, slipping 5-3 behind in their last-32 showdown.

At one stage it looked like the Perthshire potter was going to trail 6-2 but he held his nerve to grab the final and eighth frame of the session with a 20 break, enough to leave him just two frames behind instead of four.

Wattana knocked in breaks of 54 and 46 to take a 2-0 lead, before Scot Hendry responded with a superb 114 run to reduce his arrears.

But Wattana went 3-1 ahead after a scrappy fourth frame before Hendry came back to win the fifth frame, a battle which lasted over half an hour.

Wattana then won the next two frames, the highlight of which was a 48 break in the sixth frame, before Hendry made sure of the last frame of the session to leave himself within touching distance.