Ebdon Cruises Through But O'sullivan Struggles

Peter Ebdon wrapped up a place in the quarter-final with a session to spare while Ronnie O'Sullivan struggled at the World Championships in Sheffield.

Having led 6-2 overnight, Ebdon, the 2002 world champion, took all seven frames of the second session to complete a 13-2 victory over David Gray and will meet defending champion Shaun Murphy in the last eight.

Ebdon had been exremely critical of the tables last week but was delighted with the way they were playing after they were re-clothed over the weekend. "The table is beautiful now. The new cloth is much more similar to the ones on which we prepare for the tournament and more conducive to producing good-quality snooker," he said.

Despite this, the usually free-potting O'Sullivan is in danger of becoming another shock casualty as he trails 9-7 to Welsh qualifier Ryan Day going into tonight's final session. Day held O'Sullivan, the tournament favourite, 4-4 in yesterday's first session and had looked far from overawed by his task, clearly encouraged by his 10-3 rout of Joe Perry in the opening round.

It looked as though O'Sullivan, the world No1, might pull away when he took the first two frames in today's second session, but Day responded well and, thanks to breaks of 104 and 80, took a 7-6 lead. O'Sullivan levelled it up again in the next frame but Day picked up the final two frames of the morning to take a 9-7 lead into tonight's deciding session.