Maguire leads O'Sullivan in the snooker German Masters

Berlin - Stephen Maguire compiled three consecutive century breaks to lead Ronnie O'Sullivan in the final of the German Masters snooker tournament.

With a superb display of break building, Scottish snooker player Stephen Maguire compiled three consecutive century breaks in the final of the PartyPoker.net German Masters. Maguire's run came after England's Ronnie O'Sullivan had taken the opening frame of the contest with a century break of his own, a run of 111. World Snooker, the promoters of the event, have described the final as "sensational". The BBC match report notes that Maguire's contributions were breaks of 130, 106 and 128, which took him into a 3 frames to 1 lead. Maguire then proceeded to extend his lead to 4-1 by taking the fifth frame by 73 points to 58. Before O'Sullivan won two of the final three frames of the afternoon session to reduce his arrears to 3-5. To reach the final, the Sporting Life recounts that Maguire demolished former world champion Shaun Murphy 6-0. O'Sullivan, three times world champion, had a tougher game and came through against Stephen Lee 6-4. Ronnie O'Sullivan is arguably the most talented player that snooker has produced. Although he won the Premier League title a few weeks ago (where he overpowered Ding Junhui 7-1), 'The Rocket' has not lifted a ranking tournament since the 2009 Shanghai Masters. Maguire's last ranking tournament victory came in 2008 when he won the China Open by beating Shaun Murphy 10-9. Coming into the final, O'Sullivan held a 13-3 career wins advantage over Maguire. This appears, however, to have accounted for very little today given Maguire's assured performance. The frame scores at this stage of the match are (O'Sullivan first): 111-26 (111), 0-130 (130), 8-106 (106), 5-132 (128), 58-73 (O 58), 63-8, 20-69 (55), 75-24 (75) The winner will be the first player to reach 9 frames (in the best of 17-frame contest). The first prize is euro 50,000 ($65,000).