Ronnie O’Sullivan suffered a surprise exit in the World Snooker Championship quarter-finals as he was beaten 13-10 by Stuart Bingham.
The pair began the final session of their last-eight clash on Wednesday evening locked at 8-8 and the close-fought nature of the contest continued across the first four frames.
But after the mid-session interval, 2015 world champion Bingham reeled off three consecutive frames to send O’Sullivan crashing out and set up a semi-final with qualifier Jak Jones, who had caused a major upset earlier in the day by defeating world No 2 Judd Trump.
“I tried to fight, I hung in there for as long as I could, but it wasn’t meant to be.”
Coupled with David Gilbert’s 13-8 win over Stephen Maguire, it means three qualifiers have reached the semi-finals for the first time since the first year the tournament was staged at the Crucible in 1977.
Kyren Wilson, who faces Gilbert in the other semi-final, is the one seeded player left standing after he saw off four-time world champion John Higgins 13-8.
Bingham is through to the semi-finals at the tournament for the third time in his career and was revelling in the moment after his victory over O’Sullivan.
“I enjoyed every second of it, even when I was 8-6 down…and something clicked.
