Kettering's Kyren reaches World semi-finals

Kettering snooker star Kyren Wilson has reached the semi-finals of the Betfred World Championship for a second time.

The 28-year-old produced one of the best performances of his career to defeat defending champion Judd Trump 13-9 in their quarter-final clash at the Crucible.

Having built up a 10-6 lead going into today's (Tuesday) final session, Wilson exchanged frames with Trump to hold an 11-7 advantage but the world number one took the next two to win the mini session 3-1 and move to within two.

However, Wilson held his nerve after the mid-session interval and won the first before a brilliant break of 104 wrapped things up.

The world number eight said: "I wasn't lying when I said I was looking forward to playing Judd here.

"He is reigning world champion, world number one and if you can't get up for a match like that in the quarter-finals then you'll never get up for anything.

"It's nice having that under your belt, beating the current world champion and the best player in the world at the time.

"You want to see where your game is at when you are playing those sorts of players and obviously we have seen my game is not in bad shape.

"What a reign as world champion Judd has had, he has made some new records and he's set the benchmark for the rest of us to try to achieve what he has achieved.

"It's definitely up there with the better wins of my career for sure."

Trump, meanwhile, has now tipped the Kettering man to go on and win the title for the first time.

"I am not going to be too hard on myself, I think if Kyren plays like that and gets a good run of the ball he will be very tough to stop," he said.

"His long potting was brilliant over the three sessions, it looks like he has improved and he is definitely my favourite to win the title from here."

Wilson will play either Kurt Maflin or Anthony McGill in the semi-finals with the first session due to start tomorrow afternoon.