Ebdon Beats Liu But His Game Is Not On Song
The 12Bet.com World Open almost ground to halt last night as Peter Ebdon crawled to a three-frames-to-two victory over China’s Liu Song to book a place at the quarter final stage in Glasgow.
The new tournament has been billed as ‘Fast and Furious Snooker’ by promoters but the Ebdon-Song match did anything but live up to www.dictionary.com‘s definitions of ‘swiftly’,’ intensely’ and ‘energetically’.
It was more like ’Slow and Sedate’ as Ebdon, who lifted the world title in the latest Crucible final finish in history took almost three hours to see off his Chinese opponent.
Fighting to regain a place in the game’s coveted top 16, Ebdon won a first frame lasting 30 minutes and added a 43-minute second to move within one frame of victory.
Song, who has taken advantage of his place in the tournament line up as a result of John Higgins’ suspension appeared to be on his way home as Ebdon made a 40 break, his highest of the match, early in the third.
A series of unforced errors crept into the Ebdon game and allowed Song back in to snatch a win on the black and take the match into a fourth frame.
Twenty minutes later and thanks mainly to a 48 break from Song the scores were level and force the deciding frame.
By now, the 2002 world champion was looking completely shaken and had lost all his touch and feel.
Ebdon is one of the few players who is unpredictable in both his choice and execution of shots at the best of times.
This was no exception, hitting balls on the wrong side and over-hitting positional shots by increasing margins indicated that Song would get his name into the hat for Friday’s draw.
However, Song missed on 31 with the balls split perfectly, threw the Englishman a lifeline and eventually found himself in a tough snooker, which after four misses lifted his spirits and put him back in the frame.
A second and third snooker followed which took Song’s penalty points in the frame to 37.
Seemingly out of nowhere, Ebdon found a stunning long yellow to green and cleared to the pink to snatch a frame which lasted just short of an hour and keep his hopes alive of being the first World Open champion.
The media have speculated all week that players are likely to want to avoid the likes of O’Sullivan, Williams and Ding when the random draws are made but based on last night’s performance; the name Peter Ebdon is likely to be a popular choice as preferred quarter final opponent.
However, unpredictable as he is, don’t rule out the possibility of vintage Ebdon in the next round.
