Perry has the edge

Joe Perry overcame the fatigue factor to chisel out a two frame advantage over Ali Carter after the opening session of their 888.com World Championship semi-final at the Crucible Theatre.

The Cambridgeshire potter took advantage of a below-par performance from Carter, who would have been relatively happy to be trailing only 5-3 in the best-of-33-frame showdown.

Perry had been in action until 11.30pm on Wednesday before closing out a dramatic 13-12 win over a shell-shocked Stephen Maguire in the quarter-finals. But the 33-year-old world number 18 showed no visible effects of his marathon match.

He scored heavily and produced some excellent safety play in carving out a 3-1 advantage before the interval.

Runs of 54 and 62 were sufficient to clinch the opening frame for Perry and a 48 break put him in control of the next before a poor safety shot by Carter on the final red enabled him to close it out.

The match continued in the same vein in the third frame with Carter conceding after a 68 break from Perry.

Carter finally stopped the rot with the aid of a 49 in the final frame before the interval and when play resumed he made the most of his first decent scoring chance to compile a fluent 70.

But Perry regained his poised with a knock of 84 to move 4-2 and a run of 72 gave him a 5-2 advantage before Carter edged home in a scrappy final frame.

In the other semi-final O'Sullivan put an uncertain start behind him to share the opening eight frames with Stephen Hendry. The Rocket won the final three frames of the initial session to level at 4-4 against seven-times champion Hendry.

Hendry, making a record 12th last four appearance, put together a superb 140 total clearance to win the opener and set the tone. It was fully half an hour before O'Sullivan potted his first ball of the match midway through the second frame - but he finally came to life in frame six with a 102 break to spark off a revival.