Stuart Bingham. Picture by Monique Limbos

STUART Bingham pulled off an impressive comeback display to reach the UK Championship semi-finals for a second year running.

This season’s Shanghai Masters winner battled back from 5-3 down against Graeme Dott to clinch a quarter-final win and a meeting with Ronnie O’Sullivan tomorrow (Saturday).

Bingham suffered agony last year as a he lost a final frame decider to deny him a place in the UK Championship. But Bingham will have a second bite of a cherry after completing an impressive comeback with a match-winning century break,

Two breaks of 68 and a 92 helped Dott, aiming to win his first UK title, to a commanding 4-1 lead before Bingham fought back into the match winning the next two with a break of 108.

Dott moved back into the ascendancy when breaks of 54 and 65 put him just one frame victory. But Bingham battled back winning the next two frames to force a final frame decider.

And Bingham clinched the win with a break after 103 taking advantage after Dott was unlucky to go in-off when potting a long red.

Elsewhere, bookmakers favourite O’Sullivan took a step closer to winning snooker’s second biggest ranking event after beating Anthony McGill.

Fresh from his 147 antics yesterday (Thursday), O’Sullivan was given a much tougher test against McGill who was looking to clinch a place in his first major ranking semi-final.

McGill made a fine start as he went into a surprise 2-0 lead but O’Sullivan then dominated winning five of the next frames with top breaks of 98 and 125.

McGill showed plenty of fight left in him as a break of 103 reduced his arrears to 5-4 but a superb pot on a red to the middle allowed O’Sullivan to close out the match with a break of 97.

Later tonight the two remaining quarter-final matches take place with Judd Trump facing Mark Davis and Stephen Maguire up against Marco Fu.