Ebdon's form warning

Ebdon: Form warning

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Former world snooker champion Peter Ebdon has strangely released a statement warning of his lack of form heading into the upcoming Shanghai Masters qualifying tournament.

The 2002 Crucible winner is thought to have made the unusual move to play down his chances of winning in order to give bookmakers and possible punters notice of his form heading into the match.

Ebdon will play a qualifying match for the Roewe Shanghai Masters in Sheffield next week, but is keen to point out that he has not practised as he would have liked and feels he is way off form.

The 39-year-old fell out of the world's top 16 at the end of last season and is now ranked 18th, and is due to marry this weekend before heading to Sheffield.

With the John Higgins saga still fresh in the minds and a couple of other snooker betting scandals still rumbling on, Ebdon has moved to publicly describe his current form and state of mind ahead of the game.

Form

"I would like to make it known that I consider that I will not be in a position to play to the best of my ability in my Roewe Shanghai Masters qualifying match in Sheffield next week," Ebdon said in his statement.

"This is down to personal circumstances, including the fact that I am getting re-married in Hungary this weekend.

"Since playing in a recent tournament in Thailand I have not been able to practise, and by the time the qualifiers come around I will not have played for 10 days or more.

"I know just how bad I can be when I don't feel properly prepared as I am the type of player who needs to practise hard in order to play to a reasonable standard.

"As always, I will be doing my utmost to win what is a very important match for me but in truth, my levels of expectation will not be very high."

Due to his ranking, Ebdon goes straight into the final round of the qualifying competition which takes place from Monday to Thursday next week.

He will face one of Michael White, Liu Chuang, Michael Judge and Dominic Dale.