Mark Selby wore down Ronnie O'Sullivan in a gruelling encounter to reach the final of the 888 Welsh Open in Newport.
The Leicester potter won 6-2 and will play Ding Junhui, a victor by the same margin over Shaun Murphy earlier in the day, in the best-of-17-frames final.
O'Sullivan was the man in form heading into Sunday's semi-final, fresh from winning the German Masters, his first major ranking title since September 2009, and from knocking out Judd Trump in the Newport quarter-finals on Saturday.
Selby, though, has done enough over the past two years to be ranked the world number one.
Although O'Sullivan started as favourite, it was easy to make the case for his opponent who delivered a safety-first performance - the clever way to play against O'Sullivan - to advance to the meeting with Ding.
After a scratchy start from both players, Selby did enough to take the opening frame.
O'Sullivan did not make a pot, but it had still been slow going and it came as some relief when a fluent 80 from the three-time former world champion made it 1-1.
Selby was in with 34 in third frame but broke down and fell 2-1 behind.
Excitement was at a premium. Selby took a messy fourth frame to draw level at 2-2 at the interval.
He moved 3-2 in front in similarly unspectacular fashion after the fifth frame went down to the last three colours.
O'Sullivan played a poor safety on the blue and it lost him the frame. Selby cut the ball into the left middle pocket before rolling in a long pink.
It came down to a tactical exchange towards the end of the sixth frame, too, and again Selby came out on top, clearing from the final red to the pink to pull two frames clear.
O'Sullivan missed a red to the green pocket at the start of frame seven. Selby then missed a blue which he had left tricky by over-screwing.
It remained messy, a tough contest with neither man settling into a rhythm.
But that suited Selby more than it did O'Sullivan, and with a succession of visits to the table he was able to stretch his lead to three frames.
The eighth frame was all Selby, and the match was over in a hurry, to Selby's delight.
Ding impressed in beating Murphy to reach his first ranking event final of the season.
The 24-year-old from China has endured a largely disappointing campaign, suffering frequent first-round defeats and failing to reproduce the form which took him to the Crucible semi-finals last year.
But in Wales this week he has raised his performance, knocking out John Higgins early on, although he had more than a little luck when quarter-final opponent Stephen Lee looked like winning a deciding frame, only for a ringing mobile phone to distract him during a key shot on the green.
Lee missed, Ding took advantage, and against Murphy today he was dominant.
Murphy had the only century of the match, 126 in the second frame, but runs of 91, 71, 86 and 75 earned Ding his success.
Ding said on worldsnooker.com: "I'm really happy to be in the final and I played well today."
Murphy conceded he was well beaten, saying: "When you are playing the best in the world, you have to hit them hard, and I didn't do that today.
"I only finished two frames off in one visit and that's not good enough, I didn't take enough of my chances."
