to the reigning world champion 6–2. He won three matches to reach the last 16 of the Welsh Open, but relinquished his title by losing 3–4 to 19-year-old Joel Walker. He then lost in the first round of the next two ranking events and withdrew from the China Open to enter the 2014 World Championship in poor form. Maguire produced a comeback from 3–6 and 6–9 down against Ryan Day to send the first-round match into a deciding frame but, despite having a chance to win, he lost 9–10. Afterwards, he described it as "a season from hell for me" and "I just want to forget it". He ended the season as world number 14. In June 2014, Maguire whitewashed Judd Trump 5–0 to reach the quarter-finals of the Wuxi Classic where he lost 4–5 against Martin Gould, despite making the tournament's highest break of 145. Three months later, he won the Six-red World Championship, defeating Ricky Walden 8–7 in the final. However, he failed to advance beyond the second round in the three major ranking events following Wuxi. After losing 1–4 to Trump in the opening round of the Champion of Champions, Maguire hinted at retiring from the game. When he came back from 0–3 down against Yu Delu to win 6–4 in the second round of the UK Championship, he remarked that he might seek the help of a sports psychologist in the future. He then beat Mark Williams 6–2, David Morris 6–3 and Marco Fu 6–4 to play in his first major ranking event semi-final in over a year. He again faced Trump and lost the first four frames, as well as being 1–5 behind. Maguire pulled the deficit back to a single frame and had chances to send the match into a deciding frame, but went when escaping a snooker on the colours and lost 4–6. A week later, Maguire continued his resurgence of form to win the inaugural Lisbon Open, defeating Matthew Selt 4–2 in the final. During the German Masters, he stated that he had regained his confidence and it would take "something special to stop him". He needed two snookers in the deciding frame of his quarter-final match with Neil Robertson, which he managed after Robertson accidentally potted the black. In his second consecutive ranking event semi-final, Maguire was defeated 2–6 by Mark Selby. He advanced to the quarter-finals of the Welsh Open