Ebdon picks up the pace

Peter Ebdon played at express pace compared to his crawl against Ronnie O'Sullivan in seizing the early advantage in his Embassy World Championship semi-final against outsider Shaun Murphy.

O'Sullivan had been angered by the snail pace approach of Ebdon in recovering from 8-2 down to triumph 13-11 and reach the last four.

But the opening frames against Murphy were far more fluent and Ebdon established a 3-1 advantage in barely 70 minutes of action.

Ebdon, 15-8 on with bookmakers Ladbrokes to reach the final, showed no early effects of his gruelling battle with `The Rocket'.

The 2002 champion drew first blood with runs of 47 and 30 in a 20-minute opening frame in the best-of-33 showdown.

Murphy was undoubtedly the fresher of the two players after beating six-times world champion Steve Davis with almost a session to spare on Wednesday.

It was the first time that the 22-year-old, who had also knocked out another former world champion in John Higgins, had tasted the one-table environment in The Crucible.

But he quickly opened his account in the next despite initially breaking down on 34 when attempting a slow red and a 43 clearance brought him back on level terms.

The Rotherham-based player, whose pre-tournament odds had been slashed from 150-1 to 11-8, failed to convert a red when bridging over another ball in the third and Ebdon's 78 to the blue edged him back in front.

Ebdon unsurprisingly looked full of confidence after his win over O'Sullivan - and certainly was playing at a considerably quicker pace.

And he went into the mid-session interval holding a two-frame lead after an opening 70 in the next left Murphy requiring snookers.