SNOOKER/World Championship Final: Graeme Dott leads the 2002 champion Peter Ebdon 9-5 in, what has been so far, the slowest World Championship final on record.
Caution was the watchword yesterday and both players also suffered from imprecise positional play which meant that only six of the scheduled eight frames in the first session were completed in almost three hours.
And so, in an effort to catch up before today's final frames, the players were forced to continue playing into the small hours of this morning - which they did, ever more slowly.
Early in 2004 Dott was suffering so many demoralising defeats that on yet another long journey home he stopped at a service station, laid his cue against a wall and, in his best Basil Fawlty imitation, jumped on it because it was causing him so much unhappiness. Three months later, he reached the final here and won the first five frames against Ronnie O'Sullivan, but was ultimately beaten 18-8.
On Saturday, though, with O'Sullivan palpably running on empty, Dott dispatched him with professional ruthlessness 17-11 to become an unlikely finalist.
Ebdon's final session against Hong Kong's Marco Fu in the other semi-final was expected to be little more than a formality, but his commanding 15-9 overnight lead disappeared before he prevailed 17-16.
Ebdon insisted afterwards that his mental focus remained as sharp as usual, but, having made a 63 break in winning yesterday's opening frame, he missed a simple yellow when heading for 2-0 which allowed Dott to clear with 62 to win on the pink.
With a clinching 56 the Scot led 2-1 and added a disjointed fourth frame, which lasted 48 minutes and in which his most substantial contribution was 22.
A glaring error from Ebdon, leaving the cue ball short when rolling up to snooker his opponent, let Dott in for 56 and a 4-1 lead, but an appetising opening at the start of the sixth yielded only two pots. Exploited, this chance could have carried Dott to 5-1, but instead Ebdon made 61 to leave him fruitlessly pursuing a snooker. Dott recovered to rattle off the next four frames to leave the score 8-2.
However, Ebdon's intensity, will to win and force of personality always makes him a threat and he used all those qualities last night, bouncing back to take two frames in a row to make it 8-4, before Dott capitalised on a series of mistakes to draw ahead by five again. Ebdon, however, did the same in the 14th frame, when Dott missed on the pink, to leave the score 9-5.
G Dott (Sco) leads P Ebdon (Eng) 9-5. Frame scores (Dott first): 12-79, 62-53, 91-1, 70-48, 71-9, 31-67, 78-6, 53-20, 53-20, 63-16, 25-66 6-124 72-47, 51-65.
