Ricky Walden and Stephen Maguire will contest the 2014 Six Red World Championship final in Bangkok on Saturday.
The Top 16 ranked players on the Main Tour emerged after a grueling five days of short-format snooker and will compete over the best of 15 frames tomorrow for the tidy sum of £50,000.
Both players have lost only once in the competition, back in the round-robin stage, but have rarely been tested throughout the knockout phase.
Maguire’s last 32 bout was arguably his toughest tie when he was almost taken the distance by Australian amateur Ben Judge in a tight 6-4 tussle.
The Scot followed that with a more convincing display in a whitewash win over Jamie Rhys Clarke before overcoming 2005 15-reds world champion Shaun Murphy in the quarter-finals.
Earlier tonight, the former UK champion beat a third amateur player, but one who had caused many upsets already in the tournament, local hero Kritsanut Lertsattayatthorn of Thailand.
The 25 year-old had already knocked out two-time defending champion Mark Davis as well as John Higgins and Ryan Day en route to the last four but his fairytale was ended by an efficient performance from Maguire, eventually succumbing to a 7-2 defeat.
Walden’s progress, meanwhile, similarly hinged on the outcome of one key encounter.
After dismantling the challenges of Barry Hawkisn and Israel’s Shachar Ruberg, the former Shanghai Masters champion – an event which starts on Monday in China – narrowly ousted Mark Williams in a deciding frame thriller.
Walden’s last four clash proved a much easier affair when, despite losing a long opening frame to Dominic Dale, the 31 year-old hammered the Welshman to the extent that his opponent barely potted a ball thereafter.
An interesting final then and success for either in this championship would be nothing to be snubbed.
The event and the format is still rather small on the grander scale but there is certainly a degree of prestige attached to any championship that offers world champion status.
This is something that neither Walden nor Maguire have experienced in the past and therefore they will be trying their hardest to get their hands on the trophy having come this far.
