Stuart Bingham v Jak Jones LIVE: World Snooker Championship scores and updates today

Eventually it’s Bingham who wins the safety battle as Jones makes a mistake and leaves a relatively simple pot on. The black is up the table but the pink is on its spot and the reds are well spread so it’s a decent scoring opportunity

Jones accidentally flicks the blue with his cue to give Bingham five penalty points but no real damage done as he doesn’t leave a pot on. Another eight points then head to the 2015 champ as Jones misses contact trying to catch the very edge of a red.

22-4 to Bingham as the safety battle resumes in earnest.

This break is tough going so far, running up and down to baulk and then battling to keep position by cannoning off the pack of reds. He can only make 9 before the break ends when he’s hampered on the blue and he plays safe.

Bingham gives away four early penalty points with tough bridging over the brown ball but then crunches a long red into the left corner a few shots later. Nice nerve-settler that.

Tough to maintain position but he could make a few points at least here.

And we’re underway. A cagey start to the opening frame of the evening, as we’ve come to expect from these two.

Incidentally, a 17-16 match finishing at 1am would suit final opponent Kyren Wilson down to the ground!

Here come the players – walking out into the Crucible arena! This one has the feel of a late-night finish about it – Bingham and Jones haven’t exactly been motoring through the frames so far and it will only get more tense.

So settle in for some snooker drama (the best kind of drama!)

Ok, here we go. the second semi-final concludes this evening with Stuart Bingham 13-10 down to Jak Jones in the race to 17, with the winner facing Kyren Wilson in the final tomorrow and Monday.

2015 world champion Bingham came in as favourite but this match has been an absolute slog and Welshman Jones has ground his way to a three-frame lead. That finish line will still feel quite a way away though

The 12th seed took three of the four frames required in Saturday’s third session to wrap up a victory that earns him a second crack at the title following his defeat in the 2020 final to Ronnie O’Sullivan.

Five frames in succession in their second session on Friday evening had done the damage as Wilson turned a neck-and-neck clash, that was finely poised at 9-9, into a four-frame advantage he never looked likely to squander.

Gilbert did reduce the deficit to 14-11 with a break of 70 in the opening frame of the day, but after coming off worse in a lengthy safety battle in the next, his fate was effectively sealed.

Wilson punched the air and blew a kiss to his family in the stand after potting the decisive blue and will start a heavy favourite in his second final against either Stuart Bingham or Jak Jones, who complete their last four clash on Saturday evening.

A reminder of what is to come later this evening

Jak Jones stands four frames away from becoming the first qualifier to reach the World Snooker Championship final since 2016 after establishing a 13-10 lead over Stuart Bingham in their Crucible semi-final.

Resuming at 8-8 on Saturday morning, Jones briefly fell behind before reeling off five frames in a row to seize the initiative in their error-strewn clash. Bingham gave himself hope of hauling back the deficit with a flamboyant break of 104 in the seventh and final frame of the session.

The pair were hauled off one short of their allotted eight after a gruelling session that averaged over 24 minutes per frame, including one that drifted towards the hour mark and required mid-frame toilet breaks.

The pair will resume to a finish on Saturday evening with Jones, the world No 44, bidding to emulate Ding Junhui’s run to the final in 2016.

Kyren Wilson heads into the BBC studio to chat to Hazel Irvine and John Parrott after his win:

“It’s like Groundhog Day! You keep waking up same time, eating the right food and keep going. I feel like I’m going to grow gills I’ve been having so much salmon.

“Coming into this event, I’ve not had the best of seasons and suddenly everyone is saying I’m favourite. But Dave would’ve felt he had every right to win that game. He’s a classy cueist, hits the ball unbelievably well and I had to stop him getting going.

“I broke the back of the match yesterday – Dave wasn’t quite there and I was very focused. I had some good form and nice slices of luck at good moments. It was just about being patient.

On what he learnt from the 2020 final that he lost to Ronnie O’Sullivan: “Don’t eat too much pizza and have too many Peronis the night before! I woke up that morning so tired and the fire alarm woke me at 6am. I probably hadn’t even had three hours sleep, I was shattered.

“I know how to handle that a bit better now and the semi-final will give me confidence. I’ve taken that match out in one clean hit, got in with a great strike on a long red – that will give me a bit of confidence going into tomorrow.

“I tried to do something a bit different this year. I missed a few events because my form wasn’t great, then I went to Portugal for an eight-day break, left the cue alone and then had bang on two weeks to prepare. I came in quite refreshed.”