World Snooker Championship 2024: Qualifier Jak Jones into maiden world final

Jak Jones’ fairy tale run at the 2024 World Snooker Championship continues, as he advances to the title match following a 17-12 victory over former winner Stuart Bingham in the semi-finals.

The 30-year-old, who first turned professional in 2010, is into his maiden professional final of any description. Jones is only the ninth qualifier in Crucible Theatre history to reach the world final.

When world number 44 Jones walks out into the arena on Sunday for the first session of the final, it will be three weeks on from his opening qualifying match at the English Institute of Sport.

He defeated Jamie Clarke and Zhou Yuelong in those preliminaries before victories over Zhang Anda and Si Jiahui on the main stage. Jones then created perhaps the greatest Crucible quarter-final shock by eliminating Judd Trump. Add Bingham to his list of wins in the event and he has won all six of his matches by at least a margin of four frames.

Early on in his semi-final, though, things were getting uncomfortable as he fell 3-0 behind during his first tastes of the one-table set-up. But after 2015 victor Bingham missed a blue in frame four when on the cusp of widening the gap, Jones eventually took the frame and got a foothold in the contest.

The pair were tied 4-4 after the opening session and 8-8 following the second session, but it was session three on Saturday morning when Jones made his move, claiming five frames in a row to help establish a 13-9 advantage.

Bingham - conqueror of Ronnie O'Sullivan in the last eight - won the last of the session and the first of the evening to go within two, although the unflappable Jones was resilient in the furnace heat of snooker's most intense arena, winning four of the next five frames for a famous victory.

Jones hit 11 breaks over 50 in the tie, although his star qualities during this exceptional sequence of wins have been his steely concentration and potent matchplay acumen.

Prior to this event, the 2023/24 term had been a disappointing one for Jones, with a last 16 run at the Welsh Open representing his best result. However, the world championship challenge is again invigorating Jones; he was a quarter-finalist here on debut last year.

A 150/1 shot with bookmakers before the event began, Jones will become the seventh Welshman to appear in the world snooker final. The £200,000 he is already guaranteed sees him move into the world’s top 16 for the first time in his career.

Speaking to BBC Sport following his last four triumph, Jones said: "When I think of watching the World Championship final every year, thinking it's a dream and what an unbelievable occasion it is, it doesn't really feel real that I'm in that World final!

"But I am - and I couldn't be any happier."