IF self reinvention seems to be the major religion of snooker's biggest stars just now, yesterday's Benson and Hedges Irish Masters quarter final clash between Steve Davis and Peter Ebdon bore more than a little resemblance to the game's papal election.
Both players have been enjoying greatly improved fortunes of late following, they say, fundamental reassessments of their approach, and with nine Irish titles between them this match had a little of the air of a final eliminator.
A tightly fought tussle appeared to be on the cards but Ebdon, it appears, is no longer a man for hanging around. The first three frames might, it is true, have gone either way but after the six times world champion allowed the first and third to evade him, he hardly had an opportunity to stake a claim to the remaining four, with the world number three pouncing repeatedly on his rival's errors to claim a decisive 6-1 victory.
Davis, of course, boasts eight of the pair's wins in the final of this tournament, but Ebdon's, in 1995, is the more recent, while it is also the 26 year old whose latest ranking victory, in last Sunday's final of the Thailand Open, is freshest in the memory.
His success there, he said last night, was due to a decision to speed up his game which, he observed, had become a little cerebral. "For the last couple of years I've been a little bogged down because I was thinking about what I was doing too much. I realised I had to be a little more instinctive in my play and I'm thrilled the change is starting to pay off for me.
He certainly demonstrated a more aggressive approach than usual yesterday, taking control of a couple of the frames he won with his first visit to the table and putting together respectable breaks in each of the six he won.
"I had a couple of chances early on," remarked a bemused Davis afterwards, "but after that he simply annihilated me. That's the thing I love about snooker now, though. It used to be a polite game of tip tapping but now it's a lot more violent ... unfortunately I just got beaten up in there today."
His hiding had started in the first frame when, seemingly in a position to draw first blood, the 39 year old instead snookered himself on the yellow. A break of 65 enabled him to bounce straight back, but in the third a missed red when Davis was 50 points to five ahead allowed Ebdon in for a 54 point clearance and a 2-1 lead.
After that, unfortunately, it was all one way traffic, with Davis managing just four points over the next three frames while Ebdon hurtled through breaks 65, 60 and 84 on the way to a commanding 5-1 lead.
A fight back of remarkable proportions was required but never seemed likely. An easy red missed into the centre marked the end of Davis's best chance to kickstart his revival, and while the Thailand Open champion sent the black skidding off the table to open the door one last time, Davis surrendered the match with a terrible miss on the same ball, allowing Ebdon to wrap up his place in the semi finals.
There, in this evening's session, he will take on defending champion Darren Morgan following the Welsh man's similarly comfortable victory over 1991 World Champion John Parrott.
Short on confidence after a terrible season, last year's winner still strolled through the early stages of the match with a string of solid breaks before the interval helping him into a 4-0 lead.
"That was the best I've hit the ball all season," said Morgan, who made somewhat heavier going of finishing his opponent off but, having lost out on the black in the seventh, a break of 33 helped to confirm his place in the last four.
Morgan described the 6-2 win as the best of his season, while Parrott, who won the pair's last meeting, at the Grand Prix in October, without dropping a frame joked that "Darren hasn't had too good a time of it lately but I wouldn't have minded playing me in there tonight, I was so bad. I kept leaving him in among the reds when they were lined up like soldiers and he kept putting them away."
