Look who’s back! Okay, maybe without that much hair. Peter Ebdon finds himself in the semifinals of the China Open after defeating Robbo in a battle of tortoise tacticians. The former World Champion has been a bit under the radar lately - the death of his father last year caused him to “fall out of love with life” - but he seems to be entering a new chapter. We wonder if it has anything to do with his recent switch to veganism, which he wrote about in detail on a blog in Feburary. He’s always seemed like a guy ready to take on new things despite anyone else’s opinion, be it rocking a ponytail in his youth (see above), singing, or gradually becoming one of the most torturously deliberate players on the planet. But throughout those years he evidently harboured a nasty addiction to Pepsi and chocolate (“I know that a lot of people will probably laugh at that but… Sometimes, I would literally have cold sweats and shakes, if I didn’t have one or two bottles of Pepsi in a day…”) A friend recommended he see the documentary Forks Over Knives, about controlling disease by rejecting animal-based and processed foods, and it got him to keep digging for more information. Another documentary, Earthlings, got him to see the moral side of veganism, and the die was cast.

So all the best to Ebbo…though we have to content ourselves that his new energy won’t translate to more speed at the table. :-)

(Thanks to Snookerbacker for the blog link. Photo screengrab from Snooker Compilation (5) on YouTube)