Ken Doherty's demise yesterday at the Irish Masters championship resembled death by a thousand cuts, a torturous trial by safety.
His conqueror, the eight-times champion Steve Davis, demonstrated dogged perseverance to grind the Irishman into submission in a match that lasted over four hours.
As a spectacle, it was strictly for the diehard aficionados and judging by the polite, if muted applause in a half-full auditorium at the Citywest Hotel, even they were a little restless. It would be churlish not to acknowledge the quality of Davis's safety play, ensnaring his opponent in a battle for balk-line supremacy, which the Englishman shaded.
Davis, provisionally ranked 20th in the world, offered a glimpse of the tactical acumen that earned him six world championships and mocked the poor form that has denied him a place in this season's Sheffield extravaganza. The secret? "I practised really hard for the qualifying process in the world championships and played poorly and to be honest, I only practised two or three times before coming here.
"So obviously when you don't even bother to pick up a cue, you play much better," he laughed. "The last thing I needed coming here was to play the best player on form. It's funny, it's a bit like sticking 10p in a fruit machine: when you least expect it you win and when you really need it, you don't.
"I parked my car in the short-term car park at the airport and now I'll have to win (the tournament). It (the parking fee) goes up quite steeply after the first day."
Doherty, as befits a man who won successive world ranking events in Wales and Thailand, was disappointed but philosophical: "I haven't played well here for the last few years. I suppose I wish I was playing in Thailand again. I love playing here and I don't think that the pressure is a factor," he said after his second successive first-round loss in the tournament.
The Dubliner started positively, amassing a break of 62 in the first frame only for Davis to respond with mini-breaks of 15, 45 and 27 to claim the second. The first two frames had taken a sprightly 33 minutes, the third would take half an hour, a portent of things to come. A clearance to pink and a break of 52 allowed Doherty to overturn a 46-12 deficit and snatch the advantage but his opponent responded in the next frame with a break of 74 to leave it 2-2 at the interval.
Davis pinched the next frame 56-52, before frame six became an ode to safety play, with most of the audience celebrating a birthday by the time Doherty restored parity.
The match was now a war of attrition, safety exchanges sporadically interrupted by the odd break. In mitigation, the opening exchanges in several frames generally resulted in the black being trapped on the bottom cushion, surrounded by reds, rendering break-building more difficult. Davis's 61 was the decisive intervention in the seventh frame and when he rattled in a 65 in the next to lead 5-3, there seemed little hope for Doherty.
The Dubliner though was not about to acquiesce and two visits to the table (32,56) allowed him to reduce the deficit to 4-5. Of the first 16 visits to the table in the 10th frame, the shot of choice was a safety on 15 occasions: Davis had an early cut but it was Doherty who made the first mistake. Davis managed two reds and a blue, laid a snooker that drew a foul, added a further 12 before a missed red let the Irishman in.
In potting a single red, Doherty had little choice but to lay a snooker from which Davis escaped, the Englishman clinching the match with further scoring visits of 1, 14, 1, 1, 8 (two fouls) and 1. At 56-9, Doherty had endured enough. Davis will face Ronnie O'Sullivan tomorrow night for a place in the semi-final.
Peter Ebdon completed the quarter-final line-up last night with an impressive victory over Stephen Lee, containing the highest break of the tournament so far.
Ebdon, the 1995 Masters champion. Recovered from 2-0 and 3-1 down to beat world number five Lee 6-4, finishing off with a superb 124.
"I wouldn't be surprised if someone doesn't make a 147 this week because the table conditions are absolutely superb," said a delighted Ebdon.
FIRST ROUND: S Davis (Eng) bt K Doherty (Ire) 6-4 (Frame by frame: Davis scores first - 18-74 (62); 87-5; 46-64 (52); 75 (74)-36; 56-52; 17-58; 74 (61)-29; 69 (65)-15; 0-88 (56); 57-9.
TODAY'S ORDER OF PLAY: M Williams (Wal) v M Stevens (Wal), 2.0; S Hendry (Scot) v A McManus (Scot), 7.15.
