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Mark Allen booked his place in the Players Championship final after beating Ali Carter 6-3 in Telford.
A back-and-forth encounter saw the pair level at 2-2 at the mid-session interval, with both Allen and Carter struggling to find their rhythm.
It was all square after six frames, but Allen eventually settled and rattled off three in a row to seal the success.
“I wasn’t on it tonight at all, my timing was awful. I thought Ali played better than me,” Allen told ITV4.
Allen will face either China’s Zhang Anda or England’s Mark Selby in Sunday’s final.
“If you think it looked like hard work, it felt a lot worse,” Northern Ireland’s Allen added.
“I’m not happy with how I felt and how I played out there, but it’s all about results and I’m in the final.”
Earlier on Friday, Zhang held his nerve to beat former world number one John Higgins 6-4.
Scotland’s Higgins won a scrappy opening frame but lost the following five as China’s Zhang compiled breaks of 102, 79, 84, 104 and 95.
Higgins, who won the competition in 2021, showed resilience to force his way back into the clash, winning three successive frames to cut the deficit to one, but Zhang found his flow again when it mattered to clinch victory.
