Snooker: Northern Ireland's Mark Allen will face John Higgins in the semi-final of the Betfred.com World Championship after beating Welshman Ryan Day 13-11 this afternoon. Higgins edged out Mark Selby 13-12 in this evening's late finish and the pair will now vie for a place in the final against either Shaun Murphy or Australian Neil Robertson.
The 23-year-old Allen, who has already seen off the challenge of defending champion Ronnie O’Sullivan, engineered a 9-7 lead in yesterday’s two sessions of play, and brilliantly protected his advantage today, clinching victory with a break of 103 and clenching his fist in delight as he did so.
“I’ve always been confident in my own ability but looking at my results on papers you’d probably question why," said Allen afterwards. “I’m starting to perform a little bit more consistently.
“I’m very glad I’ve won that match because I read all the newspaper articles (after beating O’Sullivan) like I always do and a lot of people were quick to shoot me down after beating Ronnie, as being a one-hit wonder.
“So there was more pressure on me but I enjoy that, because I like to prove people wrong.”
Allen will relish his first Crucible semi-final.
“My dream was to one day play at the Crucible and I’ve done that,” he said. “Another dream was to play in the one-table set-up with a chance of winning the World Championship and I’m going to have that in the next match.
“Any big occasions that have been thrown at me so far I seem to have handled pretty well, so hopefully it’s another one I’ll be able to handle.”
Murphy knocked out Stephen Hendry earlier this afternoon to make amends for being "beaten up" the last time they played in Sheffield.
The Englishman dumped the seven-time champion out of this year's tournament, seven years after suffering one of the most humiliating defeats of his career.
"I made my debut against Stephen as a 19-year-old and he beat me 10-4, completely beat me up, embarrassed me in front of my friends," Murphy recalled. "And to beat him here, a guy who's back to his best and playing really well, I put that down as one of the biggest victories of my life."
Murphy recovered from the 2002 pasting by Hendry, a 10-9 defeat to Ken Doherty the following year and a failure to even qualify in 2004 by returning to Sheffield to win the world title in 2005.
Four years later he is again in title contention after beating Hendry 13-11.
"I'm slightly different than in 2005," said Murphy. "I was a bit gung-ho in 2005 and went for everything and they happened to go in.
"I'm feeling good, I'm playing well and I've got confidence in my game.
"If I keep improving I hope to be there in the mix. I've definitely got the game to win it."
Hendry was unable to build on his 147 break yesterday, which secured him prize-money of £157,000.
With £24,050 on top of that for reaching the quarter-finals, Hendry stands to take away more money from Sheffield than whoever finishes as runner-up.
He would have traded a maximum for a place in the semi-finals though, and was devastated to lose five consecutive frames from 5-2 up after his seventh-frame feat.
"In the next break I missed a red Willie Thorne would pot. I'm being deadly serious," Hendry said. "In the first four frames of last night Shaun was awesome. It was some of the best snooker I've seen."
Robertson became the first Australian since 1982 to reach the semi-finals, thanks to a brilliant 13-8 victory over world number two Stephen Maguire.
The two slugged out a slow-paced afternoon session which included a frame lasting one hour and three minutes, but the gutsy 27-year-old from dominated the early play in the evening before fending off the threat of a fightback from Maguire to seal his place in the last four.