Exciting moments in history of the Crucible continues
Tony Drago – 1988
The Maltese cueist made his Crucible debut at the age of twenty two. Tony nick named ‘the tornado’ and ‘the Maltese falcon’, soon after the inauguration of the tournament showed his positive intentions and immense talent.
He managed to move on to the next week of the championship, by defeating some of the great players of the time including Alex Higgins and Dennis Taylor.
Tony easily made it to the quarter-final of the first world snooker championship he qualified for, by playing the best snooker of his career. Unfortunately the Maltese falcon could not stand the legendary Steve Davis in the quarter-final, as he got some
banging and battering lesson from Davis.
Steve Davis was playing invincibly in the tournament as he was contesting for his fifth world champion titles.
Tony has been playing and participating in the world championships until 2005, but sadly his debut back in 1988 remained the furthest he ever got into a world championship.
Steve James – 1988
It wasn’t just Tony Drago who was enjoying an amazing debut at the crucible, an English cueist named Steve James was also on a roll, in the same championship, same year.
In his first match against Rex Williams, James scored a break of 140 becoming the first player ever to score a tournament’s highest break on debut. After pulling a convincing win with a score-line of 10-6, James went on to the next rounds.
In the later round James pulled off a huge upset by defeating Joe Johnson, Joe was well-in-form and a successful finalist of the championship titles twice in his career. After sealing another convincing win with the score-line of 13-9, James moved onto the
quarter-finals of the championship.
Having played extra ordinary and breath-taking snooker so far, the young James did not give up against the legendary Cliff Thorburn. James gave Cliff a real challenge allowing him to win narrowly with a score of 13-11.
Having lost the quarter-final, Steve’s dream of clinching the titles on his debut championship ended but did not die. Nevertheless, it was an excellent debut performance by Steve James due to which he earned a name for himself, which helped him in the big
days yet to come in his career.
Peter Ebdon – 1992
The English cueist with a pony tail had a glimmering amateur snooker career. He turned professional in the year 1991 and qualified for the most coveted championship a year later.
His first match was drawn against six-time world champion the legendary Steve Davis. Few could have expected the catastrophic defeat of Steve at the hands of a young newly turned professional player.
He was a green-horn player for the tournament, but he came, saw, and conquered as he knocked Steve Davis out in a ravishing manner. Moving on to the next rounds with a 10-4 victory over Steve Davis, Peter pulled off one of the biggest upsets in years and
caused a huge shock.
After the match with Steve, peter was pretty much talk of the town, and fans started to pour in to the Crucible to watch this young revolutionary snooker player.
All the applause and ovation added a great deal of confidence to peter’s game; consequently he destroyed Martin Clark in an emphatic style. With a score-line of 13-4, Peter’s commendable performance was being appreciated around the globe.
Moving into the quarter-final of the world championship the debutant Peter took on Terry Griffiths, Terry himself won a world championship on his debut and held the record. It was Terry who induced Peter to stop his rampage, and try his luck some other time.
Although Peter Ebdon could not emulate the achievement of Terry Griffiths, after losing the quarter-final at the hands of Terry, he had enjoyed a great round of applause and appreciation.
Coming back to eventually win the world championship in 2002, Peter has proven to be a great snooker player. Peter Ebdon still plays and competes in all the professional and invitational tournaments, as he still stands at the 12th spot in world
rankings.
To be continued…