Snooker:Scotland's Graeme Dott reached his third World Snooker final with a stunning victory against Mark Selby and will now face Neil Robertson in the showpiece after he became the first overseas player to reach the final in 27 years.
Dott, runner-up in 2004 and champion in 2006, fell so far in the world rankings he had to go through the qualifying rounds to reach the Crucible and once in Sheffield for the main event he produced shock wins over Peter Ebdon, Stephen Maguire and Mark Allen to reach the last four.
He completed a 17-14 semi-final win over Selby, who had been priced as tournament favourite prior to their tussle.
Dott has come through tragedy in his private life which led to him being diagnosed with depression, and he fell as low as 48th in the provisional world rankings in late 2008.
But by winning through to the semi-finals he guaranteed himself a return to the top 16, who qualify automatically for ranking events, and now he has a bigger prize in his sights.
“I’m relieved more than anything, to be honest,” said Dott. “I had doubts all day.
“He’s (Selby) very hard to play against and you don’t get any rhythm. I felt I had no rhythm all day.
“Tonight was a major struggle all the way through.”
Looking ahead to the clash with Robertson, which begins at 2pm today, Dott said: “If we both play the way we’ve been playing it should be a great final.”
Robertson booked his place in the final with a 17-12 win over Ali Carter, having led 15-9 overnight.
He will be staying in Sheffield despite the imminent arrival of his first child - Robertson’s Norwegian girlfriend Mille is due to give birth today.
Robertson revealed how he had hoped his mother would be in Sheffield for this year’s championship, but the volcano cloud which closed much of Europe’s air space scuppered the plans.
“My mum was going to come over this year and got really close to doing so, but with what happened with the volcano and everything, and when I was 11-5 down to Martin Gould, I thought it was lucky she didn’t come," said Robertson.
“But I won that and now I’m in the final, so I’m regretting that she didn’t come a little bit."
Robertson’s parents scrimped and saved to finance his snooker career, and he is thrilled to have repaid their belief in him, even though at one stage he almost gave up the sport.
“I came really close to quitting. I left school to play snooker but I wasn’t as dedicated as I should have been. My parents didn’t have a lot of money and were divorced from when I was two or three."