| Venue: Crucible Theatre, Sheffield Dates: 15 April-1 May |
| Coverage: Watch live on BBC TV and Red Button with uninterrupted coverage on BBC iPlayer, the BBC Sport website and the BBC Sport app |
Mark Selby withstood a dramatic Mark Allen fightback to win a late-night finish 17-15 as he reached his sixth World Championship final.
Selby, 39, aiming to win his fifth Crucible crown, held a slender 11-10 lead going into the final session.
He then pulled clear with three half centuries and a wonderful 103 to reel off five frames on the trot.
But Allen remarkably then took the next five to get back to 16-15 before the Englishman sealed his win.
Selby, a 22-time ranking winner and nine-time Triple Crown champion, who has battled well documented mental health issueswill now face Belgium’s Luca Brecel in a best-of-35 encounter which begins on Sunday.
“Luca is very dangerous. He is one of the greatest talents we have in the game and it is great to see him fulfilling his talent. We’ve known about it for a long time,” Selby told BBC Sport.
“Yesterday we both struggled and the frames went scrappy so I have nobody else to blame [for the late finish] but would I rather have only 12 hours and be playing in the final on Sunday or have 24 hours and be driving home? I know what I’d choose.
“If I were to come out on the winning side at the end of the next two days it would have to go down as the greatest win I’ve had, even in front of the first one when I won it against [Ronnie] O’Sullivan.”
The night will go down as a missed opportunity for Allen, who has had to wait 14 years for his second appearance in the last four and had aspirations of his own to complete a career Triple Crown.
The disappointment for the Northern Irishman – who won the Masters in 2018 and the UK Championship earlier this campaign – was that he simply could not gain any momentum when play initially resumed in the evening having dug deep at 9-6 and 10-7 down in the morning to prevent Selby from stretching his advantage.
“I didn’t have any form at all in that match but I never gave up and gave myself a chance,” Allen told BBC Sport.
“I put Mark [Selby] under a bit of pressure and will take a few positives out of that. I felt like I underperformed.
“I’m disappointed right now but the season as a whole has been really good with my highest ever ranking and back to the one-table set-up here so the signs are good for next season.”
A number of lengthy tactical exchanges featured throughout a fiercely contested affair between players ranked second and third in the world and by the time Selby went 16-10 ahead they looked to have taken their toll on Allen.
But with Selby on the brink of victory Allen launched a superb recovery that began with runs of 39 and 43.
Free of any pressure and seemingly no longer constrained by Selby’s superb safety, he followed up with a 48, his largest break of the evening, and with tension rising inside the auditorium Allen then edged the 29th and 30th frames to reduce the arrears to 16-14.
It was far from error-free snooker but that only served to add to the drama as Allen failed to cut the yellow into the middle and Selby missed a good opportunity to dispatch the brown.
The Englishman rattled the jaws with a pot on the last red in the 31st frame but eventually mustered a break of 64 and put the match ball into right middle, before looking up to the balcony with a look of apparent relief.
“Mark from 16-10 had to play no-miss snooker. At 16-15 he probably goes favourite because he had the momentum and I managed to hold myself together to make a good 60-odd break,” added Selby.
Analysis – Selby is the ‘ultimate boa constrictor’
Six-time world champion Steve Davis on BBC Two
Mark Selby is the ultimate boa constrictor. He can absolutely nail you to that bottom cushion. He doesn’t make many mistakes, you don’t get many easy chances. He doesn’t miss any easy balls and when he plays safe it is so good you are just playing a containing safety back. You can’t even play an attacking safety.
A lot of people don’t like watching it but as a player we admire it to the nth degree. It is just incredible to watch. What style of player can break free of it? He’s in the final.
2005 world champion Shaun Murphy
Mark Selby doesn’t lose many of these matches out there on the single-table set up. This is what he does and the matches where he links it with fast-flowing break building, everyone raves about it. He is the ultimate match-player doing what he does best.
Mark Allen made an incredible match of it. He will be devastated by that loss. It looked like for all the world that we would be going to a final-frame decider but Mark Selby, when he needed it, found something.
