Both players won their first round matches in the deciding frame, Selby coming back from 8-9, while McGill surviving Maguire's fight back from 5-9 down. This round is scheduled to start on Thursday, to be played after the system-best of 25 frames.
"Great character and temperament from Mark Selby tonight. Maflin played some great snooker, will remember that missed red in last frame for awhile though", Hendry said after first match of this year World Championship.
"At 9-8 down I was preparing my losing speech. But towards the end I knew he was feeling it, and I felt that if I could regroup and get myself together then I had a chance." said Selby afterwards.
Selby had an open game against Maflin, the stats showed an impressive first half with pot success of 96% to 90% and highest breaks of 108 to 96 in Selby's favor. The first safety exchanged came in frame 4, finally won by Maflin which after a break of 60 missed the pink to give Selby an opportunity, but surprisingly the English player missed the red, so the first half went to 2-2 after 3 winning breaks in the first 3 frames, 108 and 84 for Selby, 96 for Muflin. Some bad decisions of Norwegian player saw Selby winning the first 3 frames after the break, the first session closing at 6 frames to 3 for Selby. In the second session, after a clearance of 124 points, Selby saw himself at 2 away from a place in the second round, 8-4. As Maflin was back against the wall, he found the psychological power and turned around the match by winning the next 5 frames with breaks of 62 and 51, for a 9-8 lead. Kurt made a fault in frame 18th and Selby had an easy start of the break having the white in hand but surprisingly missed the red to the middle pocket. After a tricky red, Muflin missed the position on a color to end the break at 25. This episode played an important role in the outcome of the game, as Selby pushed the meeting to a deciding frame, with the massive part happening in the last frame while Kurt had a change of a big break but missed the second red at the score of 6-14 points. After his this Selby controlled the frame and finally won it 60-14.
I would say that McGill won the all Scottish encounter thanks to pure safety shots of his opponent during the important and close frames, e.g. in last frame of first session, at the score of 3-5, leading with 37 point with 35 left on the table, Maguire missed touching the red from that snooker leaving in the same time a free ball, finally losing the frame on the black battle. The second close frame lost by Maguire was at 4-7, leading 53-24 with 35 left on the table, Stephen had a terrible safety shot on the red that touched the pink, leaving it near the green pocket for a 32 points clearance of the young man to win the frame 56-53. At the end of 14th, McGill saw himself at one frame away from reaching the second round at his debut at the Crucible, but a fight back from Stephen pushed the meeting to a deciding frame. I can say that during the match Anthony had some lucky safety or attacking shots, same he did in frame 19th, attacking the red after Stephen's break but missed it and left nothing, but luck is part of the game and McGill deserves to advance as, after a safety battle, he managed to make a clearance up to black and win the frame with a brilliant century of 122 points.
"I was hoping Mark Selby would win last night because I wanted the chance to play him over a best-of-25. I can't wait." said Anthony after the first round match.
Prediction: McGill showed confidence along the entire first round match, this could be an epic cracker, therefore I prefer not to touch the money line as either player can qualify to quarters.