At 17:00 Beijing time on April 23, the 2022 World Snooker Championship continued in Sheffield, England. The round of 16 match between mainland Player Zhao Xintong and Maguire has just ended, and Zhao Xintong struggled to catch up in the third stage, but in the end, due to the huge disparity behind the situation, he finally lost to the opponent 9-13 and missed the quarterfinals. Maguire will essentially be fighting for a semi-final spot for O'Sullivan, who is currently 12-4 ahead of Mark Allen and will advance to advance by winning one more set tonight.
For the 25-year-old Zhao Xintong this season, it is undoubtedly the highest period of time since the beginning of his career. He finally cashed in on his talent, blew a strong Chinese whirlwind, and completed the leap from the world ranking 30th to the top 8 with the results of the British Championship and the German Masters, and entered the ranks of snooker's top contenders.
With the advantage of the world ranking, Zhao Xintong directly obtained the Crucible ticket and competed in the World Championship for the first time as a seed. In the first round, he himself felt hot, blasting a high score of 2 shots and 6 strokes of 50+, coupled with the strength of opponent Jamie Clarke was difficult to pose a real threat, Zhao Xintong played smoothly and easily won a big victory 10-2.
However, the second round opponent Maguire was not so easy to deal with. The 41-year-old Scotsman is a well-known player in the post-80s generation, although it can not catch up with the glory of the "post-80s five tigers", and in recent years, the performance has gradually declined, the world ranking has fallen to more than 40, but he is after all a career to win 6 large-scale ranking championships, technical skills, competition psychology, experience points and other aspects have a relatively thick family foundation. In the qualifying stage, Maguire won consecutive chinese players Zhang Jianjian and Zhou Yuelong, and the first round of the main tournament eliminated Sean Murphy, the 2005 World Championship champion and known as "Mr. Stability".
After the start of the game, Zhao Xintong played more normally in the first half of the first stage, blasting out a 136, a shot of 86 and a shot of 72 points in 5 innings, taking a 3-2 lead; but after that, Maguire's feel began to heat up, and Zhao Xintong's own state was gradually suppressed, allowing the opponent to win 3 consecutive sets to end the first eight games with a 5-3 victory.
In the second stage, the situation was even more unfavorable to Zhao Xintong. In the entire eight innings, Zhao Xintong only scored a 72-point consecutive score, and the difficulty of the game can be imagined for the Chinese whirlwind, which is characterized by the most core technology of attacking style. Maguire was much more stable, blasting a three-shot 60+ in eight innings, and the big score was 6-2 to have the upper hand, rewriting the total score to 11-5.
If Zhao Xintong loses another round, the other party will get the advantage of the match point, so from the beginning of the third stage, he basically has no way to retreat. In the seventeenth set, Zhao Xintong seized the fighter and won 82-24. In the eighteenth inning, Zhao Xintong hit the iron while it was hot, and sent an egg with 85 points, chasing the score to 7-11.
In the nineteenth inning, Zhao Xintong came up and slammed a long platform, but he lacked accuracy and failed to hit. Maguire took the lead in breaking the deadlock and unleashed a sustained round-up, scoring 81 points to seal the win and bring out the match point 12-7. In the twentieth set, Zhao Xintong single-handedly hit 67-0, just to complete the super score, and then Maguire directly conceded defeat in the process of chasing, and Zhao Xintong chased another round, dragging the game into the last break.
In the twenty-first inning, Zhao Xintong played several times, and finally saved another match point 70-7. In the twenty-second set, Zhao Xintong scored first, but the initiative quickly shifted to Maguire, who scored a single 59 points and then turned to defense; Zhao Xintong left a difficult red ball in the middle bag, and Maguire accurately hit and won the game, advancing to the quarterfinals 13-9.