The Hindu : Sport / Billiards & Snooker : Dott inching towards first title

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, May 02, 2006

Sport

Sport - Billiards & Snooker

Dott inching towards first title

SHEFFIELD : Graeme Dott edged agonisingly closer to a first World title when he opened up a 11-5 lead over former winner Peter Ebdon in the best-of-35-frame world snooker championship final on Sunday.

The Scotsman dominated the early exchanges and was 8-2 ahead before Ebdon rallied late in the day in what was becoming a war of attrition at the Crucible Theatre.

Dott showed far more positive intent than his opponent in a match where half-hour frames were the norm.

The Scot's tactical and safety play was of a high standard and he strung together the few breaks of any quality.

The go-slow approach meant the first session was restricted to only six frames after spanning nearly three hours and the pace was even slower when the players returned to the table for a 10-frame evening session.

Ebdon had been in scintillating form for the majority of the past fortnight, combining rock solid snooker with consistently heavy scoring.

But the Dubai-based player had been below par in the closing stages of his semifinal with Marco Fu, scraping home 17-16 after surrendering a 15-9 lead, and he again struggled against Dott.

The 28-year-old won all four frames before the mid-session interval. Ebdon seemed to have a negative mindset in contrast to the brilliant exhibition during the second and third sessions against Fu when he had chalked up three centuries and eight 50-plus breaks.

Ebdon trailed 4-2 after the opening session and was unfortunate when play resumed to pot a long red only for the cue ball to drop in the yellow pocket after he had screwed back.

Dott needed no second invitation to increase his advantage with a 59 break, which left the 2002 World champion needing snookers. A run of 40 in the next proved sufficient for Dott and then a 31-minute frame nine also turned his way after Ebdon missed a black along the rail.

Dott again showed composure to compile a decisive 39 clearance to the black.

Ebdon was making far too many errors and a 33 from Dott helped him to complete a pre-interval whitewash.

Ebdon won the first two frames of the next session to trail 4-8 but Dott then hit back to win the next two. The last two frames of the session were shared.

The scores:

Graeme Dott (Sco) leads Peter Ebdon (Eng) 11-5 (12-79, 62-53, 91-1, 70-48, 71-9, 32-67, 78-6, 53-20, 53-20, 63-16, 25-66, 6-124, 72-47, 51-65, 61-5, 16-92). — Agencies

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