Greene hoping to put the breaks on Ebdon show

It was Greene for go for Peter Ebdon at Sheffield’s Crucible Theatre this morning as the number one seed made the perfect start to the defence of his Embassy World Championship title.

Ebdon received a great ovation from a sell-out crowd as he walked out from behind the curtains to begin his opening match against former stablemate Gerard Greene.

Ebdon, returning to the scene of his greatest triumph, a year after beating Stephen Hendry 18-17 in the final, chalked up a magnificent 127 break as qualifier Greene failed to pot a ball.

However, it was a different story in the second frame for a player without a title to his name since his gripping victory over seven-times world champion Hendry.

The duo slogged it out for 49 minutes before Greene edged an early contender for the longest frame of the championship by clearing brown to black.

Frame three was up to speed and again Ebdon’s break building enabled him to regain the advantage with a 72 break after an earlier effort of 45 from the world number 63.

Ebdon, 2-2 in the match, is attempting to become the only first time Crucible champion to retain his title.

And on the evidence of the opening exchanges Greene is going to make him fight all the way.

On the adjoining table, 1991 champion John Parrott made an encouraging start against unpredictable Quinten Hann.

The world number 18 has been a Sheffield ever-present for the last 20 years but had to qualify this year to protect his record.

Like Greene, Australian Hann did not score a point in the opening frame as the 38-year-old Liverpudlian took advantage with scoring visits of 15, 46 and 24.

Parrott, dividing his time between playing and presenting for the BBC, should have gone 2-0 up.

However, Hann potted a long green and also took brown, blue and pink to equalise at 1-1.

The 25-year-old world number 14 then took charge as Parrott scored just 14 points in the last two frames before the interval.

Parrott will hope to improve in the second part of the session to give himself every chance of scoring an upset win when the game concludes tomorrow morning.