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Dott sends Edbon packing

Image: Dott: Second round

Graeme Dott won his Crucible final rematch with Peter Ebdon 10-5 to send his opponent tumbling out of the world's top 16 in the process.

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Scotsman sends former champion tumbling out of world's top 16

Graeme Dott won his Crucible final rematch with Peter Ebdon 10-5 to send his opponent tumbling out of the world's top 16 in the process. Just as in their 2006 final, Dott and Ebdon played out a gruelling battle in their first round clash at the Betfred.com World Championship, albeit on a smaller scale. Dott, the 2006 champion, opened up a comfortable lead in the first session, but an error-strewn second session saw neither man really settle, and it was just a case of hanging on in the end for the Scotsman. Ebdon trailed 7-2 from the opening session, but everyone knows he will never lie down and roll over, as he proved by taking the opening two frames. Firstly a break of 72 got him back into the match, and a scrappy 11th frame went his way to pull the deficit back to just three frames at 7-4.

Scrappy

Scrappy was the order of the day, but it was Dott who was on the right end of the next frame, but with the aid of a break of 55 Ebdon got another on the board for 8-5 in what looked like being another long night for these two. As was the case in most of the frames in the evening, Dott got his hand on the table in the next but could not convert into a big score - but Ebdon was having even more trouble controlling the cueball and the Scotsman nipped back in to go 9-5 in front. What turned out to be the final frame summed up the match, with both men producing some decent one-off pots, but neither being able to put together a frame-winning break. It was Dott who eventually secured it though, and with the win he ensured Ebdon would drop out of the top 16 for the first time since 1994 and be forced to qualify for the major events next season. Dott will move on into the second round and play the winner of the on-going contest between Stephen Maguire and Stephen Lee.
Murphy magic
2005 champion Shaun Murphy got off to a cracking start in his match with Gerard Greene despite losing the opening frame - as he came storming back to win the remaining eight in the session. Murphy was in red-hot form and scored heavily on almost every visit to the table, with one century and further breaks of 90, 88, 62, 61 and 50 doing the damage. Murphy now needs just two more frames on Thursday to make the next round, where he will need to keep up his top form against Ding Junhui.

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