without facing a top-16 player, and lost 1–5 to John Higgins. In 2015, Maguire qualified for the televised stages of the World Championship for a 12th straight year courtesy of Selby defeating Robert Milkins in the China Open, which kept Maguire in the top 16. In the opening round of the World Championship, he forced a deciding frame after having been 5–9 down to Anthony McGill, but then lost the decider. This was the fourth time in five seasons that Maguire had lost in the last 32 of the World Championship, and on each occasion he exited 9–10 having trailed and levelled the match. His end-of-season ranking of world number 15 was the lowest he had been in 11 years. 2015–2018: Decline in form Maguire and teammate John Higgins lost in the final of the 2015 Snooker World Cup to Chinese teenagers Zhou Yuelong and Yan Bingtao. Maguire then reached the semi-finals of the first ranking event of the year by thrashing Judd Trump 5–1 at the Australian Goldfields Open, but he lost 1–6 to Martin Gould. He began his fourth-round match against Neil Robertson with a 118 break, but it was the only frame he could win in a 1–6 defeat. He was knocked out in the quarter-finals of the German Masters 1–5 by Graeme Dott and the first round of both the Welsh Open (3–4 to Martin O'Donnell) and the World Grand Prix (0–4 to Higgins). He failed to qualify for the PTC Finals after finishing 42nd on the European Order of Merit. This meant that Maguire needed a strong run at the China Open to avoid having to qualify for the 2016 World Championship at the end of the season. He achieved this with four wins to the China Cup semi-finals, but he was then whitewashed 6–0 by Trump. Despite his automatic qualification for the World Championship, Maguire stated that he felt embarrassed at being unable to motivate himself for the event, after losing 7–10 to Alan McManus in the first round. His 18th-place campaign was the first time that Maguire finished outside of the top 16 since 2004. Maguire beat Barry Hawkins to make the quarter-finals of the Indian Open where he lost 1–4 to Anthony McGill. He made a 147 and two other centuries in his 5–0 wildcard win over Xu Yichen at the Shanghai Masters. He then whitewashed Shaun Murphy 5–0 and defeated Hawkins