At the World Snooker Championship, Stephen Maguire confused onlookers by delaying his stroke to swat and consume a fly off the table. The 43-year-old’s additional protein was ineffective, as David Gilbert easily defeated him in the quarterfinals.
After defeating two-time finalist Ali Carter and former world champion Shaun Murphy, Maguire advanced to the last eight with two significant victories. However, his match against Gilbert proved to be too tough for him to handle.
Maguire lined up to take a shot at 11-8 with the first-to-13 contest beginning to wane. He hesitated, swatted a fly that was on the table, then picked it up and ate it, much to the enjoyment of the spectators.
“Well, he hasn’t shown any mercy there,” quips Dave Hendon, a pundit for Eurosport. “And that has been his general approach today!”
Maguire told The Metro, following his 13-8 loss in the next two frames, that it was simply a fly, and that he was eliminated from the World Snooker Championship. I spat it out in front of no one.”
The world No. 28 started against Gilbert horribly, behind 7-1 at the end of the first session. And while he fought valiantly to turn the match back into a competitive one, his choice to give up the last set when just one more snooker was needed gave some people the impression that he had given up.
One snooker necessary, you don’t jack it in, it’s the World Championship, anything can happen, said BBC pundit Ken Doherty, who was one of them. The other guy is starting to twitch a little bit when you win the frame with a snooker. Then, never give up after a month of Sundays.
