Advertisement

Stephen Maguire earns crack at record £700k prize fund despite Welsh Open final heartbreak

Stephen Maguire of Scotland reacts in a press conference after the round two match against Shaun Murphy of England during day nine of the Cazoo World Snooker Championship 2024 at Crucible Theatre on April 28, 2024 in Sheffield
-Credit:Getty Images


After defeat in his first ranking event final for five years Stephen Maguire might've felt down. But he has plenty of reason to be cheerful, 700,000 of them in fact.

The Glasgow star's surprise run to the showpiece saw him eventually defeated by four-time world champion Mark Selby in the final, earning him £45,000 in prize money - some way shy of the £100,000 cheque Selby took back to Leicester. However the final came with a much bigger bonus, as it boosted On Fire 18 places up the Johnstone's Paint One-Year Rankings, earning him a spot at snooker's World Grand Prix in Hong Kong which gets underway on March 4.

Standing in his way at the first round is Masters winner Shaun Murphy, and the two players have history dating back to a feud 20 years ago where Maguire was docked a frame for forgetting to bring his chalk to the table. And a whopping prize fund totalling £700,000 is up for grabs, up from just £380,000 last year, with the winner earning £180,000 of that.

READ MORE: I'm a seven time snooker world champion - there is one man I'd hate to play at the Crucible

READ MORE: Stephen Maguire ‘tragedy’ addressed by Mark Selby after Welsh Open win

In the world rankings Maguire is up from 29th to 26th, meaning he will remain an outsider for the event - which is set to feature all of the sport's top stars, including No.1 seed Judd Trump who has been limiting his competition time before the world championships and Welsh winner Selby. Ronnie O'Sullivan is also due to take part, but after pulling out of warm-up event the Rocket is continuing to keep fans waiting before they get to see him back in action.

Snooker World Grand Prix draw

  • Judd Trump v Gary Wilson

  • Jack Lisowski v Zhang Anda

  • Si Jiahui v Ronnie O'Sullivan

  • Ding Junhui v Xu Si

  • Mark Williams v Stuart Bingham

  • Wu Yize v Pang Junxu

  • Mark Allen v Jimmy Robertson

  • Mark Selby v Jackson Page

  • Xiao Guodong v Jak Jones

  • Lei Peifan v Elliot Slessor

  • Chris Wakelin v David Gilbert

  • Neil Robertson v Yuan Sijun

  • Barry Hawkins v Tom Ford

  • Shaun Murphy v Stephen Maguire

  • John Higgins v Ali Carter

  • Kyren Wilson v Matthew Selt