World Snooker Championship 2024: Kyren Wilson reaches Crucible final

Kyren Wilson is through to the final of the 2024 World Snooker Championship at the Crucible Theatre following a 17-11 last four victory against David Gilbert.

A runner-up in snooker’s blue riband event four years ago, Wilson will face the winner of the second semi-final between Jak Jones and Stuart Bingham who conclude their match on Saturday evening in Sheffield.

Arguably the most unpredictable world championship ever, world number 12 Wilson was the only seed left come the one-table set-up on Thursday. Out of the four remaining contestants, the 32-year-old had dropped the least amount of frames across the opening three rounds (15) and was now the in-running tournament favourite.

Against former ranking event winner and fellow Englishman Gilbert in the semi-finals, though, he met a player revitalised following a largely anonymous season. Having navigated qualifying, Gilbert rallied to dethrone defending champion Luca Brecel on the opening day before comfortable victories over Robert Milkins and Stephen Maguire. He also had experience of the single table environment having played there in 2019.

The tie had all the makings of a very close one, and that was the case throughout the opening two sessions which finished 4-4 and 8-8. There was never more than a frame between them, and during the second session, Wilson led four times but was pegged back by 42-year-old Gilbert on each occasion.

However, significant damage was done by five-time ranking event winner Wilson in the third session on Friday night as he strung together five consecutive frames from 9-9 to take control at 14-9 up.

Gilbert won the last frame of the session and the first frame of the concluding session to threaten a comeback, but Wilson did not buckle as he took the next three frames to reach his 14th career ranking event final.

Wilson registered 13 breaks over 50 during the match whilst Gilbert totted up four centuries to take his overall tally at this year’s main stages to ten, four more than anyone else at the time of writing.

Prior to his trip to Yorkshire, like Gilbert, it had been a frustrating season for Wilson, who had appeared in just one ranking event semi-final and missed out on qualification for all three Players Series events. However, there had been signs of improvement in recent months, and his scoring throughout the campaign has been very impressive, currently behind only Judd Trump on the ton chart for 2023/24.

A professional for the first time in 2010, Wilson is still looking for his first Triple Crown event triumph. As well as his Crucible title match loss to O’Sullivan in 2020, Wilson was also denied by Mark Allen at the 2018 Masters final. It has seemed likely for some time, though, that the biggest event of all represented his best hope having made at least the final four in the last seven years.

Speaking to BBC Sport after his win against Gilbert, Wilson said: "Coming into this event, I didn't have the best of seasons and then all of a sudden everybody is saying I'm the favourite and I've got to handle that pressure.

"I'm quite aware of that but Dave had every right to be beating me as well. Dave's a classy cueist, hits the ball unbelievably well and I just had to try to stop him getting into his stride.

"It felt like I broke the back of the match yesterday and I was very focused on hitting home the advantage."