by Clive Everton BBC Sport Snooker correspondent

Peter Ebdon may have played some compelling snooker on the first day of the World Championship final, but Stephen Hendry was certainly not at his best.

It would have been natural to expect Ebdon to be somewhat drained, having gone the distance against Matthew Stevens late the evening before the final.

However, the semis appeared to have taken more out of Hendry, who beat O'Sullivan earlier on that day.

The Scot might have said that O'Sullivan's scathing comments did not matter, but I think emotional strain from that drama took a lot out of him.

Ebdon was good in all departments. He had one or two kind runs on the ball, but that happens to all good players who are playing well.

Ebdon has only won four ranking titles, while Hendry has won 33 - but that statistic was made irrelevant on Sunday.

Hendry lost his cueing alamingly after 7-5.

It looked certain that it was going to be 6-6 when Hendry made a break of 68 to leave Ebdon requiring a snooker.

For Ebdon to then win the frame was a huge psychological turnaround for Hendry, who assumed he would go level.

I think it affected him.

After the mid-session interval he tried too hard. His performance on long straight pots was poor. He lost his cue action.

And in the end, from 9-5 down he did well to win one of the remaining two frames.