THEY practise together every week but Stephen Maguire admits he would rather not be playing John Higgins in the second round of the williamhill.com UK Championship.

The York winner in 2004 won a battle of long potting to beat five-time victor Stephen Hendry 6-3 on Saturday night and set up a last 16 meeting with his close friend, whom he considers the “best player in the world”.

It will be a second Battle of Scotland for the 30-year-old, who reckons he will have nothing to lose when he faces the defending champion tomorrow evening.

“They keep drawing the Scots together but at least one of us is going to be in the quarters,” Maguire said. “He’s going to start off a strong favourite, rightly so, and I have got nothing to lose so I am just going to go out and enjoy it.

“I think the last few times we have played, he lets me get into the lead and then he crushes me. Maybe the only way I’ll win is to let him get into a lead and then I can come back.

“I don’t think anyone likes playing him. It is nothing to do with him being a friend but, at the moment, I would say he is the best player in the world and I don’t really want to play the best player in the world.”

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Maguire should take heart from the fact he scored heavily against Hendry, arguably the greatest player in the history of the game, hitting eight breaks over 40, including two centuries, in a display of almost perfect long potting.

On the occasions Hendry got among the balls he also racked up the points, but his long game wasn’t up to scratch – and he was made to pay.

“He missed a few to let me in, which, if he is potting his long ones, he is among the balls and it is a different game,” Maguire added. “He was scoring well and his safety was different class.

“It was just his long game. He’s struggling with it and I hope he gets it back because he is a class act.”

Maguire could have been 4-0 up at the break, taking the first with a magnificent 122 and cheekily winning the second after Hendry, putting together his first scoring run of the match, had made 57. A brilliant 81 from Hendry, after Maguire raced into a 55-point lead, halved the gap, but he still trailed 3-1 at the mid-session interval.

Hendry, out of the top 16 for the first time in more than 20 years, made it 3-3 after the restart but Maguire crushed his spirit with a magnificent 134 in the seventh frame and followed up with 90 and 52 to surge into the next round.

He’s now hoping he can draw on good York memories. “I know I’ve won it once but, before I won it, this is the place I was playing well all the time,” Maguire explained. “(Ken) Doherty beat me and (Paul) Hunter beat me but they were all good matches and then I finally broke through (in 2004) so York has always been quite good for me.”