Maguire storms into lead

Stephen Maguire fashioned a 10-6 lead over Mark King after a one-sided second session of their last-16 match at the Betfred.com World Championship.

Glaswegian Maguire had been locked at 4-4 with King overnight, but he eventually upped the pace this morning after the pair both struggled to get going.

A break of 49 allowed Maguire to edge 6-5 ahead of Romford man King, and he also took the 12th frame with a run of 83 to establish a 7-5 lead.

That was the first time in the match either player had pulled two frames clear.

For the Scot it was his third frame in a row, and although King halted that run by pulling back to 7-6, breaks of 133 and 84 from Maguire opened up a three-frame gap, and 54 in the final frame of the session helped him stretch that further.

Maguire and Mark Selby have been made joint favourites to win the tournament following Ronnie O’Sullivan’s surprise exit.

Selby was also looking strong in his second-round match against Graeme Dott, consolidating his four-frame lead in the day’s opening session.

Resuming this morning at 6-2 up, Selby saw 2006 world champion Dott cut that to 7-5 at the mid-session interval, however the Leicester cueman then raised his game to take a 10-6 advantage into tonight’s concluding session.

Their final frame featured one of the most unusual incidents in the tournament so far.

Dott was about to go in off a red but kept the white ball out of the pocket with his fist, conceding that the ball was destined to drop in.

The white rolled off his fist and towards the D and Selby picked it up, believing it was his right to place the ball wherever he wanted inside the semi-circle.

That would have been the case had Dott not blocked the pocket with his hand and the white dropped in.

Although Dott was punished with a four-point foul, referee Alan Chamberlain ruled that the white ball had not left the table, so when Selby moved it he was also penalised four points.

Selby was not happy with the decision but managed to win the frame with a break of 71.

Both players made centuries in the session, with Selby firing in a 101 and Dott replying with 117.