Ebdon

Player Profile

Peter Ebdon

Born:	27 August 1970. London, England
Turned Professional:	1991
Highest Break:	147 (1991 Strachan Open; 1992 UK Championship)
Career Centuries	263 (to end of 2008/9 season)
Highest Ranking	3rd (1996/97. 2002/3)

Peter Ebdon was one of the best juniors of his day, winning a £1500 prize when only 16 in the National Handicap in the 1986/7 season. Over the next few seasons he became a regular winner of amateur and pro-am events. The biggest of these was in the 1989 Pontins Open when he beat Ken Doherty to take the title. That season he also won the Rothmans Amateur championship. The following season a clutch of further titles followed along with the IBSF World Under-21 championship. He continued winning in 1990/1and his name was never out of the snooker press. It was consequently no surprise to anyone that he made an immediate impact when he joined the professional ranks for the 1991/2 season along with some 300 odd other hopefuls.

In that season he only failed to reach the final stages of two ranking events, reaching the last 16 of the Grand Prix and qualifying for the Crucible at his first attempt. Sporting a pony tail in those days, he came up against six times champion, Steve Davis, in the opening round and caused a major upset by beating him 10-4 and went on to the quarter-finals. He was, by some way, the most successful of all the new professionals achieving a ranking of 47 at the season’s end and was named the WPBSA Young Player of the Year. Four last 16 places in ranking events in 1992/3 put him into the top 32 at 21st although he did not get beyond that stage.

He did not however have to wait long for his first ranking victory. That came in the 1993 Grand Prix with a 9-6 victory over Ken Doherty. He also reached the Regal Welsh semi-final and the quarter final in Dubai to take him into the top 16 at number ten, adding a quarter-final in the Masters along the way. The following season saw him in his second ranking final, losing out to Alan McManus in Dubai, along with semi-finals in the UK and the Welsh and quarter-finals in Thailand and at the Crucible. He beat Stephen Hendry to take the Irish Masters and finished the season with the Pontins Professional title as well.

In 1995/6 although he failed to win a ranking title, he reached the final of both the UK and World Championship and was up to third in the rankings by the end of that campaign. Over the next three seasons he won just one title, the Thailand Open and his ranking slipped back to 13th. By now married with a young family, Peter was also spending a lot of time on his horse racing interests which include an intense study of pedigree lines and his snooker began to suffer a little.

He turned things around in 2000/1 winning both the British Open and the Regal Scottish Open and in the following season he was runner up in the LG Cup and Irish Masters but the best was yet to come. In the Embassy World Championship a narrow victory over Matthew Stevens in the semi finals took him into the final for the second time. Just like the first, his opponent was Stephen Hendry and this one always looked like going all the way which it did. Peter held his nerve in that 35th frame and lifted the world championship trophy at last. As a consequence he was up to third in the rankings which equalled his best ever six years before.

After winning the world title it was nearly two years before he lifted another trophy, the 2004 Irish Masters, and no trophies came is way for the next two seasons after that although he did reach his third world final in 2006 but lost to Graeme Dott. Despite his lack of victories he maintained a place in the top eight.

Just when he seemed to be finding results hard to come by he won the 2006 Maplin UK Championship with some of the best snooker of his career. He is only the ninth player to win both World and UK titles. In 2007/8, despite reaching the quarter finals of three ranking events, and the Masters, he dropped out of the top eight for the first time for eight seasons. In 2008/9 he was in danger of dropping out of the top 16 until he won the China Open. Nevertheless five first round defeats meant he lost another five places.

Peter has always been a hard player to beat and some feel that the immense mental effort he puts into every match can sometimes work to his disadvantage. Nevertheless he has now won over £2.7 million in prize money and made over 250 century breaks in competition. Away from the table, he has four children and owns and breeds racehorses. He now lives in Dubai.

Career Highlights

World Professional Snooker Champion	2002
World Professional Snooker Championship Runner up	1996, 2006
UK Championship winner	2006
Grand Prix champion	1993
British Open champion	2000
Thailand Open champion	1997
Scottish Open champion	2001
Irish Masters champion	1995, 2004
China Open champion	2009
Scottish Masters champion	1996
Malta Grand Prix champion	1995
Pontins Professional champion	1995
Pontins (Spring) Open champion	1989
IBSF World Under-21 champion	1990