While snooker is no longer as popular as it was a couple of decades ago, we are still fond of tuning in from time to time. It is a game of immense skill, something you can only appreciate when you give it a go yourself and make an absolute balls of it.
When you do manage to pull off a decent shot it is often more down to luck than anything else. Sometimes you see a ball go in and wonder what the hell actually happened.
That was certainly the case at the Dafabet Masters at Alexandra Palace earlier this afternoon. Stephen Maguire was facing against Neil Robertson in the first round of the tournaments when the Scot pulled off a bizarre shot.
He was attempting to steer home a red with a powerful shot, using the spin to break up the remaining pack of reds. It didn't really work out like that.
Instead, he managed to hop the cue ball over the adjacent pack of balls. Not only that, but the red he attempted to pot would rebound off the back of the pocket, before spinning back in to the corner. Just when he thought his luck was in, the cue ball would somehow manage to roll into a corner pocket at the far end of the table.
Neither his opponent nor the referee could quite believe what they had seen.
"You'll never see anything like that again!" 🤯
Stephen Maguire thinks he's managed to make the most incredible fluke... but the watch the white ball go
Even @nr147 is gobsmacked 😮
🔴 Watch the #DafabetMasters
📺 Eurosport 2
📱💻🖥 Eurosport Player: https://t.co/0Fa7uXMVB9 pic.twitter.com/H3HzTgDqov— Eurosport (@eurosport) January 13, 2020
🗣 @fouldsy147: "It probably felt like part of a dream for Maguire"
🗣 @jimmywhite147: "We're not going to try and recreate that, are we?"@ColinMurray and the rest of the studio look at THAT Maguire moment pic.twitter.com/e33xPuf506— Eurosport (@eurosport) January 13, 2020
It's safe to say you probably won't see a shot like that again.
It turned out to be a good day for Maguire, who remarkably overturned a 5-1 deficit to run out as winner on a 6-5 scoreline.
