Ebdon's concentration wavered in a tense opening to his match against Marco Fu and at the end of the seventh frame he spoke to Dutch referee Johan Ooman about the noise caused as spectators listened into the comments of the TV commentary team which are beamed into television sets.

When play ended for the day Ebdon and Fu were level at 4-4 on what looked like a gruelling road to the final with the 2002 world champion taking his complaint to tournament director, Mike Ganley.

A first frame re rack set the pattern though when it restarted, Fu in his first world championship semi-final, looked at ease on such a heady occasion, a break of 81 which followed a 49-0 lead settling him down as Ebdon failed to pot a ball.

Half an hour later and Ebdon was level finishing off the second frame with a clearance of 56 after Fu had built up a 35 points lead.

The frame that started tongues wagging and feet twitching was the sixth which took 53 minutes to complete. It was a war of attrition which Fu eventually won after potting the last red.

In the quarter-finals,Fu, who defeated Ken Doherty 13-10, won the longest frame of the championship so far, a 60 minutes affair in which his concentration never wavered.

And he had to stay focused again as the last frame of the day, dragged on and on. After 44 minutes there was still a red to deal with but Fu eventually cleared to the pink to tie things up at 4-4 overnight.

Those eight frames had taken 3hrs.45mins and 11 seconds to complete with the average duration 28.09 minutes.

In contrast Ronnie o'Sullivan and Graeme Dott were at the table for 2hrs.44mins.19 secs resolving eight frames of snooker at the end of which the Rocket led 5-3.

Dott recorded a break of 121 at the start and a 70 at the finish with o'Sullivan's best a 66, 63 and 61.

John Dee

The Nation