Highly-rated Chinese teenager Yuan Sijun has continued to enhance his reputation by defeating Stephen Maguire to reach the last-eight of the Coral World Grand Prix.

The 18-year-old has received rave reviews from some legends of the game with Stephen Hendry describing him as the best teenager in a quarter of a century.

“He’s the best 18-year-old I’ve seen since the days of Ronnie O’Sullivan, Mark Williams and John Higgins,” Hendry told ITV.

“He has got the swagger and the inner confidence, at the table he’s got everything and hits ball the right way. You can see his calmness around the table when he’s clearing up. “I was interested to see how he would follow up his win over Williams, and he seems to rise to every challenge.”

He had already made a huge statement on Tuesday when he sent World Champion Mark Williams packing and he added the scalp of Maguire on Wednesday.

Yuan’s is now gearing up for his second ranking event quarter-final, having reached the same stage at the China Championship in September, and he will go up against practice partner Xiao Guodong on Thursday.

Maguire started positively and he led 2-1 after breaks of 78 in the first frame before hitting 52 and 37 to wrap up the third.

However, Yuan showed his character to fight back and claim three successive frames to close out the match in Cheltenham.

Yuan can be backed at 1.85 to prevail on Thursday while Xiao is also priced at 1.85 to come out on top.