SHEFFIELD, May 6: England’s Ronnie O’Sullivan and Ali Carter scored convincing semi-final wins at the Crucible on Saturday.

Only hours after Carter booked his place with an emphatic 17-12 victory over Scotland’s Stephen Maguire, O’Sullivan secured his place with a 17-10 win over Welshman Matthew Stevens.

It will be the second time the pair meet in the world final, four years after O’Sullivan destroyed Carter’s hopes with an 18-8 triumph that handed him his third world title.

And while Carter will be hoping for a closer final this time round, Maguire was unequivocal when asked who he thought would triumph.

“Over the course of the final, Ronnie isn’t going to let him off the hook the way I did and I think that will make the difference,” said Maguire, who lost to fellow Scot John Higgins in his only previous Crucible semi-final five years ago.

Despite going in as the underdog, Carter has won plenty of plaudits for getting this far.

The Englishman had been suffering so badly with Crohn’s disease, the bowel condition he was diagnosed with nine years ago, that he considered walking away from the snooker tour.

The world championship would have been his last tournament and he admitted reaching the final had surpassed his expectations.

“I’m as surprised as you are,” he said. “I’m delighted to be through. The job’s not done yet though. I’m not just happy to just be in the final, so we’ll see what happens.”

O’Sullivan resumed play on Saturday 11-5 ahead of Stevens but suffered a slow start to the session in which Stevens took four of the opening five frames and clawed his way back to 12-9.

However, the 36-year-old from Essex fought back to lead 15-9 at the end of the session and conceded a further frame to Stevens before closing out the match.

Despite his emphatic margin of victory, O’Sullivan said: “That was hard. I got off to a great start and he pegged me back.

“Then I had a brilliant second session. I felt like I was hanging on today and wasn’t the better player, but I managed to stick in there.”

Results: Semi-finals (best of 33 frames): Ali Carter (ENG) bt Stephen Maguire (SCO) 17-12; Ronnie O’Sullivan (ENG) bt Matthew Stevens (WAL) 17-10.—AFP