Irish Masters: O’Brien wants action replay

Fergal O’Brien is hoping history will repeat itself when he tackles a snooker legend on home soil in the Irish Masters tonight.

The world number 16 faces Stephen Hendry in the first round of the event at the Citywest Hotel a few miles from his Dublin home.

And O’Brien has fond memories of his previous encounter with the three-times champion in the 1994 Irish Masters.

Back then, O’Brien was making his debut in the tournament and Hendry was world number one and world champion but the Irishman pulled off a shock 5-2 victory to the delight of a partisan crowd.

Now, eight years on, he is looking forward to producing another crowd-pleasing performance.

‘‘To play just up the road against a seven-time world champion is as good as it gets,’’ said O’Brien.

‘‘If I could have picked anyone to play it would have been Stephen and hopefully there will be a big crowd in.’’

O’Brien, together with fellow Dubliner Ken Doherty, is aiming to end a frustrating three-year spell in which an Irishman has failed to win a match in the event.

Since Doherty reached the 1998 final, both players have failed to negotiate their opening match, an anomaly O’Brien attributes to the importance placed on the invitation event in Ireland.

‘‘It may be a case of trying too hard,’’ he said.

‘‘There’s so much build-up to the tournament. People are coming up to you for weeks trying to get tickets and wanting to know when you’re playing.

‘‘Maybe we should try and detach ourselves from all of that and concentrate on the snooker.

‘‘I hope I can because if, as an Irish player, you had a choice of what tournaments you could win it would be the world championship and the Irish Masters.’’

Joe Swail, who hails from Northern Ireland, could not break the Irish hoodoo last night as he fell 6-2 to an in-form Peter Ebdon.

Swail, appearing in the tournament for the first time since 1996, made breaks of 58 and 79 before the interval to be level at 2-2 but made a key error in the fifth frame which turned the match.

Requiring only the penultimate red to lead 3-2, he played a poor positional shot, missed the more difficult pot and Ebdon stole the frame with a 38 clearance to the black.

Ebdon then upped his game and rocketed 5-2 ahead with breaks of 120 and 81 before clearing brown to black in the eighth to set up a quarter-final meeting with world number one Mark Williams.

Earlier Stephen Lee saved his best form until last when he compiled breaks of 72 and 88 in the final two frames of his 6-4 victory over Paul Hunter.