World Championship 2012 (Day 14) - Carter and O'Sullivan keep marching on

Will Carter and O'Sullivan meet in this year's WC final?

Second day of the semi-finals saw the same leaders as the day before, Ali "The Captain" and Ronnie "The Rocket" reaffirming their position as favourites to reach the grand final, Carter leading Maguire by 14-10, while O'Sullivan ended the second session by being 11-5 ahead of Stevens.

Ali Carter and Stephen Maguire had to dispute two more sessions today and although at the end of the first one the gap between the two baize gladiators was a two-point one (5-3), Carter ended the second one on 10-6 and the third on 14-10.

Breaks of 57 and 59 were helping the Scottish player reinstall the balance of thematch at 5-5, but Carter destroyed it, and moved back in front at 9-5.

Maguire hit a marvellous 142 break to prove he's still there fighting, but Carter closed the session winning a scrappy frame for a 10-6 lead.

The third appearance the lads into the arena started with the Scotsman's runs of 45 and 31 that were narrowing the gap at just three frames, but then Carter took off using breaks of 53, 134, 41 and 72 to go up, up in the sky at 14-7.

Still, Maguire didn’t give in or lose his grip and managed to pull back no less than the last three frames of the session with runs of 64, 70 and 32, the last one being won after Carter missed a tough red on 53. 

In the other match, that only had one session disputed today, Ronnie O'Sullivan took a very decisive 11-5 lead over an overwhelmed Welshman, who although succeeded to came back into the match from being lead 5-3, couldn't do more during this snooker encounter.

With carefully made breaks of 60 and 63 Stevens was turning the scoreline from 5-3 into 5-5, before the "Rocket" decided to fire in runs of 62, 110, 98, 94 and 113 and win the six remaining frames of the session and put the Welshman in all sorts of trouble (to quote the classics) at 11-5.

Tomorrow, the last two sessions of O'Sullivan v. Stevens match are kicking off, along with the last one for Carter and Maguire. The clock is ticking and we need two names for the grand final, so who's going to be?

10am
SF2 Ronnie O'Sullivan 11-5 Matthew Stevens
2.30pm
SF1* Stephen Maguire 10-14 Ali Carter

7pm
SF2* Ronnie O'Sullivan v. Matthew Stevens
*denotes the final session of the match

TV coverage: