Stephen Maguire (born 13 March 1981) is a Scottish professional snooker player. He has won six major ranking tournaments, including the 2004 UK Championship, and has twice since reached the finals of that event. Maguire turned professional in 1998 after winning the IBSF World Snooker Championship. He was in the top 16 of the snooker world rankings for 11 consecutive years, from 2005 to 2016, twice reaching world no. 2. He is a prolific break-builder, having compiled more than 450 century breaks, including three maximums. Career Early career Maguire turned professional as a snooker player in 1998. He qualified for the 1999 UK Championship, where he was defeated 2–9 by Mark King in the first round. He played in qualifying for the 2000 World Championship, defeating Wayne Brown, Nick Walker and Bradley Jones to reach the final qualifying round, where he lost 9–10 to Joe Swail. Maguire qualified again for the 2002 UK Championship, going on to defeat Fergal O'Brien 9–4 in the first round, before losing 7–9 to Ken Doherty in the second. Two years later, Maguire reached the final of his first world ranking event, the 2004 European Open. Ranked 41st in the world, he defeated Peter Ebdon and Joe Perry (both 5–4), John Higgins 5–3 and Stephen Lee 6–4 to meet Jimmy White in the final. He then defeated White 9–3 to win the championship. The BBC described Maguire as a "surprising winner", and he admitted to being "very surprised how badly everybody has played against me here". At the 2004 World Championship later that season, he qualified for the 32-player competition for the first time. He lost 6–10 in the opening round to Ronnie O'Sullivan, who admitted to being impressed by Maguire's performance and tipped him to be a future world champion. The following season at the 2004 British Open, Maguire defeated O'Sullivan 6–1 in the semi-finals to reach his second ranking event final. This led to O'Sullivan claiming that he had "never seen anything like that on a snooker table before" and also rated Maguire as "probably the best [player] in the world at the moment". Maguire met John Higgins in the final, but lost 6–9. 2004–2009: UK Championship winner (2004) At the 2004 UK Championship, Maguire defeated Mark King, Mark Davis, Stephen Lee, Ronnie O'Sullivan and Steve Davis en route to the final, where he defeated David Gray 10–1. Players praised the quality of