World Championship 2012 (Day 15) - Captain Carter lands in final

Captain Carter lands in final

"Ladies and gentlemen, we are happy to inform you that we shall be landing on World Championship’s final in a few moments time. Thank you for choosing Carter Airlines and see you again tomorrow for another spectacular flight in our quest for the shiny trophy!"

That's how it must have sounded when Ali Carter landed in the final of this year's World Championship, after he beat Stephen Maguire by 17-12.

It's been an outstanding match that had it all: from brilliant positional shots, to flukes, from fouls, to getting lucky, from safety shots that were just out of this world, to playing for snookers. Still, throughout the entire match Carter was the only always in charge. 

Either we are talking about the first session which he won by 5-3, or the second one when he detached himself at 10-6, or the third when he flew at 14-10, the player from Essex was just … well, forget the cliché … flying.

Huge effort from Maguire, but sadly it wasn't enough

The last of the lads encounters started in the best possible way for Ali who used breaks of 41, 27 and 24 to go just one step away from victory at 16-10.

Maguire, who didn't experience the feeling of being in the leading position not even one single time since the beginning of the match, knew he had to do something. So he fought the best way he could, his efforts being rewarded with winning the next couple of frames with runs of 56 and 53.

At 16-12, the lads entered into the mid-session break, but after 15 minutes of having a cup of tea, get some speedy practice, or receive guidance from the Snooker Guru Peter Ebdon (that only applies for Carter), Ali decided to end the match with a top break of 70.

Carter's mentor, Peter Ebdon

The Englishman that hasn't been in a World Championship final since 2008, when he lost to the one who seems to be his opponent this time too, Ronnie O'Sullivan, is writing one hell of a final for the 2011/2012 season of snooker. 

Had a poor season due to his Crohn' disease, but got back on track since the China Open and has kept on fighting to get into the final of a tournament which trophy hasn't lifted yet. Could he do it now? Hard to answer, but we are definitely going to see one hell of a battle of cues in the next two days, that’s for sure!