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Australia was toasting its first Crucible champion after Neil Robertson ground out an 18-13 victory over Graeme Dott.

The likeable 28-year-old with the scruffy blond barnet suggested earlier in the championship he was not a fan of morning starts, but evidently morning finishes are more his thing.

The match finished at 0054BST, matching the latest ever finish - John Higgins completed his victory over Mark Selby at at the same time in 2007.

As he became the first champion from outside the British Isles since Canada's Cliff Thorburn in 1980, Robertson wrapped himself in an Australian flag and saluted the crowd before lifting the trophy.

"This is absolutely perfect," he said.

But just as snooker urgently needed a rush of good publicity, the final proved to be a wholly dispiriting conclusion to the Betfred.com World Championship.

Robertson, whose girlfriend is due to give birth any day now, prevailed so there was no disappointment on his part.

And with his mother Alison present after her dash from the other side of the world it was an extra special occasion.

But it would be fair to assume there will no 25th anniversary replaying of this final, as there was last Thursday of the classic 1985 battle between Dennis Taylor and Steve Davis.

In Australia the final was broadcast for the first time on pay-per-view television, and Australians tends to embrace their winners whatever the circumstances.

However, banks of empty seats must have been as surprising a sight to the viewers in his home city of Melbourne as they were to those several hundred spectators who did travel to the Sheffield theatre.

As midnight passed, the crowd appeared to thin out even more.

Marathon frames made it a gruelling final session, hardly the advert for the sport Barry Hearn would have wanted after the tribulations of the past two days.

For a while it seemed Robertson and Dott were looking to string out the match for an Australia prime-time evening audience, but it was mid-morning in Melbourne when the city's new sporting hero sealed his triumph.

In securing his title, he maintained his perfect record in ranking event finals, stretching it out to five wins from five appearances.

The Australian flag was waved by a loyal follower as Robertson strode purposefully into the arena.

Thirteen years ago Robertson disappointed his mother by quitting school early to focus on snooker, but after several years of toil as a journeyman player he has realised every player's ultimate ambition.

The record books show Australia had a world title to celebrate in 1952, when Horace Lindrum triumphed, but that was the year when the sport's leading players staged a boycott and to this day in many circles he is not regarded as a credible world champion.

Robertson certainly is, and the world title is a natural progression for the left-hander after his four previous ranking titles.

Snooker has experienced a tumultuous 48 hours, with last year's Crucible winner John Higgins suspended over allegations in the News of the World that he agreed to throw frames in future matches for money. He firmly denies the allegations against him and has vowed to clear his name.

That story had almost completely overshadowed the first three sessions of the final.

But tonight snooker had the stage to itself, and it was only a pity that the match did not live up to the occasion.

The late-finish situation called into question the strategy of starting the final-day sessions at 3pm and 8pm. Robertson and Larkhall cueman Dott had managed to squeeze in just six of their scheduled eight frames during the afternoon, and that left up to 13 to contest in the evening.

Dott moved from 9-7 to 12-10 as the afternoon action crawled along, before the players were called off shortly after 6pm.

That allowed them to have a break before the resumption at 8pm.

There was a long way to go for both players, and they split four unspectacular frames at the start of the session.

Dott had ended the afternoon session on a high with the first century of the final, a satisfying 112.

But anyone hoping for a swift resolution to the match and an early getaway received a reality check when the first frame of the evening lasted 26 minutes, eventually going Dott's way.

Robertson was more clinical in the next, with breaks of 55 and 51 restoring his two-frame cushion.

However Dott came back at him again, and after a journey which began in the final qualifying round he was sure to keep battling for the chance to land his second world title.

Dott got ahead in the frame which followed the interval but there then followed perhaps the most dreary spell of the match, spells of safety interjected with the occasional pot.

The Scot had chances to pinch it, notably when Robertson left the blue for him over the green pocket.

But Dott could not get from blue to pink, or at least did not try to. Robertson sank it, and that took him three frames clear.

Quite predictably Dott won the following frame to close to 15-13, but it was his last.

Robertson was below his best for much of the match but it hardly mattered as he wrapped up victory with a break of 53.

Speaking at his press conference, Robertson said: "I just seriously can't believe it. It was a titanic struggle of a match, it really, really was.

"The pressure before the final and during the final was absolutely unbelievable.

"Obviously there's so much at stake and you wonder if you'll ever get the chance again.

"I had so many added pressures, my mum came over the day of the final, obviously I knew what the potential could be for this back home in Australia, and all the people back home, my family and everyone else."

Discussing his mother's trip, and her presence as he sealed victory, Robertson said: "That meant absolutely everything to me.

"These are the moments you want to spend time with your family. It would have been great to have my brother and my dad over but that would have been a little bit too much.

"Even if I'd lost I would have been really happy that she'd seen me play, because she'd never seen me play professionally and she'd always wanted to do it.

"She had a lot of courage to book the flight when I was only 15-9 in front against Ali (Carter, in the semi-finals). I got a voicemail after I'd beaten Ali saying that they'd just left Singapore, so it was incredible."

Robertson admitted it was a struggle to find any momentum.

"Throughout the whole match I couldn't break away," he said.

"I couldn't get into a really good flow and break away and play fluent snooker. Graeme just kept pulling me back.

"I won a really crucial frame to go 15-12 when the pink I potted down the cushion was probably the best pot I've made in my life.

"That gave me a bit of breathing space."

Dott said: "It was a scrappy game. I don't think anyone could say we tried to play negatively, we were both trying to perform.

"But frames just ended up getting stuck.

"I tried as hard as I could but there was nothing which was going to change the outcome of the match."