SNOOKER/World Championship follow-up: There are two categories of snooker player: those who have won the world title and those who have not, and clearing the last psychological barrier is a supreme test of mettle in the heat of the Crucible.
"It's what I have been working for and dreaming about for the last 17 years," said the new champion Peter Ebdon in the immediate aftermath of his dramatic 18-17 victory over Stephen Hendry virtually on the chimes of midnight on Monday.
Ebdon has certainly done more than dream. His preparation has included a strict fitness programme that has included swimming up to a mile a day. He has also studied the works of American self-help guru Napoleon Hill and believes each contribute to the exalted standard of mental stamina which he was required to draw upon for his first title.
"I wasn't ready to win it six years ago, but I've improved as a player and as a person," said Ebdon, referring to his defeat by Hendry in the 1996 final.
This year's contest, for all its excellence, provided a reminder that the steeliest nerve can bend at the crucial moment. In this, it harked back to many of the finest, most stomach-churning of Crucible deciders.
Hendry may have experienced a remembrance of finals past when Ebdon, within a couple of balls of winning 18-16, rolled wide a black which was dead straight with the cue ball only nine inches behind it.
As he had not shown the faintest sign of weakness in the two days of the final, it was a mistake explicable only by the extraordinary feeling of having his career-long desire at the point of fulfilment. "It was unforgivable, but there was so much tension," said Ebdon. "I thought I'd blown it."
After a skirmish, Hendry managed to clear the colours to take the match into a deciding frame which opened with Ebdon still in extreme disarray.
"The one thing you want in the last frame is a chance and I had three, but I bottled it," said Hendry. "My concentration went in the last frame. I don't know why." In fact, none of the chances were easy in the circumstances and his mind had taken all the pressure it could bear.
Ebdon, having been through the valley of doubt, managed to regain his conviction as his break mounted to 59 and when Hendry went in-off in an attempt for a safety shot with four reds left he knew that he had won. It was only his fifth world ranking title compared with Hendry's 33rd, but it takes him to third place in the end-of-season rankings behind Ronnie O'Sullivan and Mark Williams, with John Higgins, Ken Doherty, Hendry, Stephen Lee and Matthew Stevens, a 17-16 semi-final loser to Ebdon, filling the remaining places in the top eight.
Next week the new champion has a long-standing engagement to give a motivational talk at Highbury Grammar School. "My old Latin master rang me up. I was afraid he was going to ask me for my homework after 16 years," said Ebdon, a promising student with several O-levels who abandoned his education to his family's dismay at the time in order to play snooker full-time.
He intends to present copies of a book by Napoleon Hill to pupils at his old school. Its title, Think And Get Rich, is not an entirely inappropriate gift from a player who has just won snooker's record first prize of £60,000.
Whether he will throw in copies of his new single, Fall Of Paradise, remains to be seen, but in the euphoria of becoming world champion he is as close to paradise as a snooker player ever gets.
The ability of a great world snooker final to hold the nation in thrall was amply demonstrated by the weekend's viewing figures: a 7.5million BBC television audience for the climax of Peter Ebdon's victory compared to a 7.4m peak and a 6.3m average for the FA Cup final.
Guardian Service.
