Dubliner Ken Doherty advanced to the final of the Thailand Masters with a convincing 5-1 victory over John Parrott tonight.
He will be hoping to reproduce a similar level of form in the best of 17 frame final against Stephen Hendry, who also eased through earlier in the day by hammering fellow Scot John Higgins 5-1.
Doherty, who fired in a pair of century breaks during his runaway 5-1 quarter-final victory over Pakistan's Shokat Ali yesterday, again displayed great fluency.
He put together breaks of 65, 53, 84 and 56 but, as he later agreed, the crucial moment of the match arrived in the fourth frame.
Doherty potted a tough last red from distance to a baulk pocket, cleared to the pink for a 3-1 advantage at the mid-session interval and from that point it was plain sailing.
"John's always a tough player to beat so I'm very relieved to get past him. Now I'm looking forward to playing Stephen. I've got a pretty good record against him and we've had some right old tussles in the past."
Hendry leads Doherty 16-12 in career meetings but the Irishman beat the seven-times world champion 5-3 on the way to getting his name engraved on the trophy in Wales two months ago and has every reason to be optimistic of a repeat.
Doherty beat Hendry 6-3 in the semi-finals of the 1996 Thailand Masters, before being edged out 9-8 by Alan McManus for the title, and more famously scored an 18-12 win over the Scot in the climax of the 1997 Embassy World Championship. -PA