SNOOKER: Ken Doherty, unshaken despite losing the last frame of the middle session in bizarre fashion, progressed from his overnight 8-8 to a 13-8 win over Matthew Stevens to reach the quarter-finals of the World Championship. In seeking an ultra-thin contact to pot Sunday's last black Doherty missed it altogether to concede the frame, a blunder that he confessed caused him a restless night.
"It was probably worse than the (very easy) black I missed for a 147 (in the 2000 Masters final) but I didn't let it weigh me down, and I felt good once I got the first frame on the board today," said the Dubliner, who won yesterday's first frame with a break of 83 and the second from 31 behind with a 63.
Further efforts of 51, 69 and 67 put him four up with five to play and Stevens potted only two balls in the remaining frame.
"Ken played fantastic," said Stevens, twice runner-up and three times a losing semi-finalist here in the last six years. "He was flawless. He didn't miss more than five or six balls all the way through."
Doherty's capture of the Malta Cup in February signalled the return of the form and confidence he had lacked since losing the 2003 final here to Mark Williams. Having recovered then from 10-2 down to level at 16-16 the eventual 18-16 defeat, he admitted, was a psychological wound which took a long time to heal.
Doherty will tackle Marco Fu in the quarter-finals, which start today, while the other last-eight match in the top half brings together the defending champion Shaun Murphy, and Peter Ebdon, champion in 2002.
The 2004 Irish Masters is the only title Ebdon has won since and he arrived without reaching a quarter-final in this season's five ranking events but his implacable will invariably makes him difficult to beat, particularly at The Crucible where the longer matches give him greater scope to bring his force of personality to bear.
With David Gray, Jimmy White's conqueror, mired in mediocrity, Ebdon ground out a 13-2 victory with a session to spare. "I feel that if I do get tested I'll respond," he said later.
Graeme Dott gave Scotland a quarter-finalist for the 18th consecutive year, and long after his compatriots Stephen Hendry, John Higgins, Alan McManus and Stephen Maguire had returned home.
Dott, runner-up to Ronnie O'Sullivan two years ago, held off Nigel Bond 13-9 although the 40-year-old could at least depart with the memory of a 10-9 tie-break black triumph over Hendry and an end-of-season ranking of either 21 or 22, his best for six years.
The Scot, who had been 11-6 up overnight, returns today to play Neil Robertson, the 2003 World under-21 champion who could revitalise the game Down Under if he won the title. "Australia's about winners," he said candidly, although it has not had a finalist since Eddie Charlton lost to Ray Reardon in Melbourne in 1975.