Ebdon ousts Ding, meets Maguire in Beijing final
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E-mail Shanghai Daily, April 1, 2012
Peter Ebdon rallied from 1-3 down to stun local favorite Ding Junhui in the semifinals of the China Open in Beijing last night.
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Peter Ebdon (L) rallied from 1-3 down to stun local favorite Ding Junhui in the semifinals of the China Open in Beijing last night. [Sina.com.cn] |
He will meet Stephen Maguire in today's final after Maguire won four consecutive post-interval frames to defeat Stephen Lee 6-2 in the opening semifinal.
Ding appeared to have the patience to withstand Ebdon's methodical approach early on and recovered from dropping the opening frame to the Englishman's 67 break to win the next three.
Breaks of 54 and 69 brought Ebdon level, before Ding overhit a vital final blue for the seventh frame allowing the veteran to clean up for the lead, which he retained for good.
Earlier, Scot Maguire recorded six breaks of over 50 as he powered to a convincing win over the in-form Lee, which gave a degree of credibility to the victory after a freak treble on a re-spotted black edged him past Ronnie O'Sullivan in the last eight.
Head of steam
Englishman Lee, building up a head of steam before next month's world championships with four semifinal appearances in the last five ranking tournaments, was unable to reach top gear throughout the contest but for a strong spell in which he came from two frames down to tie at 2-2.
And the subsequent interval was the last thing his momentum needed, as Maguire came out eager to right the wrongs of poor decision making in those third and fourth frames and he did just that, breaking big in each of the final four.
Starting strong with a break of 76 in the opening frame, Maguire was able to capitalize on two prime opportunities in the second for Lee to level in an error-strewn second and double his advantage.
Lee had scored an impressive victory over Judd Trump in the quarterfinals.
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