Mark Williams will face home favourite Ding Junhui in the final of the China Open after beating Ali Carter 6-4 in the semi-finals. In a tense battle, Williams won the final two frames to finally shake off the challenge of Carter, who had led 3-1 before Williams took three in a row to turn the match around.
The first frame set the tone for an intriguing tussle between two well-matched players, as Carter got the best of a safety contest and made a break of 53 to put it out of reach for Williams.
Carter looked to be cruising in the second frame too, but a missed black early on handed Williams a chance. The Welshman made only 24 but Carter gave him another shot before Williams missed the yellow, and this time Carter made no mistake.
Williams took his first frame thanks to a lucky shot, a misplayed safety that instead set him up for the final red and a shot at the black which he took. However, he could not respond to Carter's break of 58 in the next as he fell 3-1 behind.
The two-time former world champion was struggling but began to find his range in the fifth frame, taking advantage of an error from Carter to cut the gap back to one frame. And he then tied it up with a break of 66, the highest of the match so far, to make it 3-3.
A break of 62 helped Williams take a 4-3 lead before Carter responded to tie it once again at 4-4. Williams then looked to be cruising towards victory in the ninth frame until missing a black.
However, Carter could not capitalise, and Williams had a break of 68 to win the 10th frame and wrap up victory.
"That's probably as good or even better than my first three wins," said Williams. "For the first four or five frames I wasn't playing that well, but I just said to myself 'hang in there and hope it turns around'. Towards the end I played some good stuff."
In the other semi-final, Ding knocked out Northern Ireland's Mark Allen 6-2. Ding sealed the win with a superb break of 125, his second century of the match, as Allen struggled to find any rhythm.