Grace lines up meeting with former world champion Ebdon

The Yorkshireman has had a memorable week in York, beating Andrew Higginson in round one, downing world No 17 Robert Milkins in style in the last 64 and now seeing off Lisowski 6-4.

The 30-year-old is getting married next year and admits the £12,000 he is now guaranteed from the tournament will come in handy, after only just about breaking even so far in his snooker career.

He made a break of 52 in the opening frame against Lisowski, although the talented Cheltenham youngster still pinched it to move 1-0 ahead.

Grace responded to level proceedings at 1-1, but his opponent, who is working with 1979 world champion Terry Griffiths on the mental side of his game, made a fluent 89 in the third and was 3-1 ahead at the mid-session interval.

Leeds potter Grace is currently ranked 81 in the world, although he will now enter the world’s top 75, and demonstrated his grit and determination after the interval.

Grace cleans tables at the Northern Snooker Centre in Leeds to earn extra money and swept the 24-year-old off the baize to once again tie things up at 3-3, a knock of 75 in frame five particularly impressive.

The pair then traded frames seven and eight to leave things finely poised at 4-4 before Grace admirably kept his cool to rattle off the final two frames he needed to book a last-16 match with Peter Ebdon.

Ebdon believes he proved there is life in the old dog yet after overcoming a lack of sleep to beat world champion Stuart Bingham and reach the last 16.

Despite not finishing his second-round match with Dominic Dale until almost 1.30 yesterday morning, Ebdon returned to the baize for 1pm and played tremendously well to beat Bingham 6-3.

It is 13 years since Ebdon won the world championship by beating Stephen Hendry 18-17 in a dramatic final.

But he recreated something like that sort of form to bookend the last-32 clash with breaks of 66 and 109.

The 45-year-old insists he will have to produce an even better display if he is to get past Grace in the next round.

“As soon as you let your concentration slip, you get beaten.

“So I’m going to have to play as well, or even better in the next round,” said Ebdon.

“That’s a massive, massive win for me because having not played against the top players on the big stage for a while, it would have been easy for me to fold.

“I just felt fantastic. I felt like a professional snooker player again and I don’t feel like that when I’m not playing on the big stage. It just doesn’t do anything for me.

“I felt really good today. I got about five hours sleep – I was just so relieved to get through against Dominic because I was looking down the barrel.

“I’m absolutely over the moon with the way I played – it’s not every day you beat the world champion and Stuart is a great player.

“It’s nice to know that the old heart is still ticking for me and hopefully there are a few more days in the sun yet.”

Eurosport is the Home of Snooker, showing all major ranking events including the World Championship, UK Championship the Masters and the exclusive ‘Ronnie O’Sullivan Show’.
Available on Sky, Virgin Media & BT TV or online/mobile via eurosportplayer.com