Congratulations to Liang Wenbo who has today completed an excellent comeback to defeat Stephen Maguire 7-6 in the final of the Beijing International Challenge, having at one stage trailed 6-4…
Liang Wenbo 7-6 Stephen Maguire
Sometimes you do not always see the two best players from a tournament actually contesting the final but in this case both Liang Wenbo and Stephen Maguire came into the best of 13 clash on merit and hard to separate given their performances so far.
Early on the match was predictably close, the two level at 3-3 at the interval before advancing to 4-4 in no time. Soon however it was the world number two who made a push, taking the next two to stand just one away from the title at 6-4.
Liang however was not about to disappoint the local crowd and rallied to level things up again at 6-6, before taking the deciding frame to deny Maguire his second title in China following his victory in the China Open back in 2008.
It may not be a ranking event but with the quality of the eight man field out there in Beijing, this is another notable landmark in the career of Liang Wenbo as he continues his march up the snooker ladder. Now up into the top 32 and with his first professional title won, it will be very interesting to see if he can continue to improve and regularly reach the business end of ranking event tournaments in 2009/10.
For Stephen Maguire it is a disappointing way to lose but he has played some excellent snooker this week and his final appearance here represents a good start to the season, if not the perfect one.