World number 64 Peter Lines’ fairytale ride in the Pukka Pies UK Championship came to an unfortunate end on Wednesday as he crashed out at the quarter final stage against 2004 UK Champion Stephen Maguire, writes Rob Hayes.

The tournament’s lowest-ranked player beat last year’s finalist Marco Fu in the opening round with a comprehensive 9-3 victory, and knocked out two-time world champion Mark Williams on Tuesday, with the match going down to the black ball in the final frame.

But there was to be no semi-final appearance for the Leeds potter, who was left to rue the mistakes he made in the opening session. Lines could have been 4-0 up at the mid-session interval, but his inability to close out frames saw the score remain level at 2-2.

Maguire won the remaining four frames before the break to head into the evening with a 6-2 advantage, and he soon extended it further, winning the opening frame of the concluding session to open up a five frame lead.

Lines won the next three frames, recording half-centuries in all of them, before Maguire pieced together the highest break of the match to put himself within one frame of the semi-final.

The world number two edged the final frame to secure safe passage to the last four, where he will face China’s Ding Junhui.

Ding recorded a hard-fought 9-8 victory over world number five Ali Carter, but the 2005 UK Champion was totally outplayed in the first half of the afternoon session as his opponent  “The Captain” took a 3-0 lead with breaks including 124, which turned out to be the highest break of the match. MF

Ding, who has climbed to ninth in the provisional rankings, won the next four frames in a row, looking revitalised after the mid-session interval, but Carter managed to level the scoreline at 4-4 going into the evening session.

Carter got off to the better start after the break as he won the ninth frame, but Ding responded with a 96, his highest break of the match to equalise once more.

Having won the next two frames, the Essex cueman looked strong favourite to win the match at 7-5 up, but three half centuries from Ding, and one from Carter saw the match go to a deciding frame.

The Star of the East showed why he is regarded as one of the world’s best players, as he potted a well-controlled 76 break to edge the match 9-8 and progress to the final four.

Thursday sees the other two quarter finals take place, with Mark Selby taking on world number one Ronnie O’Sullivan, whilst John Higgins faces Chinese starlet Liang Wenbo.