How Ebdon pissed O’Sullivan off and beat him

Ronnie O’Sullivan is a prominent figure in the world of snooker. In addition to his resounding victories, he is also famous for his eccentric antics. Ronnie likes to knock out his opponents, but he can also get hurt by them. And that’s what happened during the O’Sullivan-Peter Ebdon clash in 2005.

Not an easy fight

The 2005 World Championships proved to be quite a challenge for Ronnie. He was literally winning by victory, just to defend his title. The first round was a difficult one for him, as he nearly lost to Steven Maguire. However, in the second round the snooker player calmly beat Alistair Carter.

Ronnie will remember the quarter-final for the rest of his life. His opponent was Peter Ebdon, who won the world championship in 2002. Already at the start of the contest it was clear that the game was going to be very interesting. It was a real battle of titans in the snooker world, ready to tear each other apart for the title.

However, the intrigue quickly faded away when Ronnie clearly took the dominant position. The first minutes ended with the score at 2-1. The next 10 minutes saw him eliminate Peter’s approach to the table altogether. He took a break of 101 points. Some time later, another similar break was taken. The first session ended 6-2 in favour of O’Sullivan.

The start of the second session was marked by Ronnie winning two more frames. So the score was 8-2 and it seemed to be clear who would win the current duel. However, Peter suddenly perked up and managed to win the next four frames. Despite this kind of activity, the session ended with a 6:10 score. Once again the odds were stacked against Ronnie to overtake Ebdon.

The final session turned out to be a truly exciting one. While Ronnie tried to finish the bout as quickly as possible and played at a fast pace, Peter, on the other hand, did everything as slowly as possible. During this time he managed to improve his position many times over. Interestingly, stretching time is not new. However, the press after the match “exploded”.

Many wondered why Ebdon had not been cautioned for such ‘tactics’. Peter is known for his slowness, because he makes fewer mistakes that way. But ignoring the excessive stretching of time and the situation in general began to irritate Ronnie greatly. He began to make a lot of mistakes because of the stress. In the end, the score was 11:10 in Peter’s favour.

Interestingly, Ebdon himself did not view his slow play as a kind of tactic aimed at annoying his opponent and forcing him to make mistakes. Nevertheless, it worked. In a match where many were already convinced of Ronnie’s victory from the opening minutes, Peter managed to turn things around in the end, leaving his opponent with nothing.

Despite an impressive victory against Ronnie O’Sullivan, Ebdon was unable to progress to the cup. Having reached the semi-finals, he had an equally tense game against Sean Murphy. In the end he lost to him 12-17. Murphy, on the other hand, subsequently won the championship.