Mark Selby and John Higgins will meet in this year’s World Championship final after completing contrasting semi-final victories earlier today (Saturday).

Mark Selby and John Higgins

Defending champion Selby moved to just one win away from winning his third World Championship title in four years after coming through a thrilling semi-final encounter against Ding Junhui – winning 17-15.

Whereas Higgins needed less than 40 minutes in the evening session to book his place in the final after a rather comfortable victory against Barr Hawkins winning 17-8.

This year’s finale will be a repeat of the Crucible showdown in 2007 when Higgins secured his second world title beating Selby – then aged 23 – 18-13.

Higgins has since won two more world championship titles (2009 and 2011) meaning he will become one of a very players to become a five-time world champion at the Crucible should he win over the next two days.

But that fete will not be easy to achieve after Selby once again showed why he’s the world’s number one after grinding his way to a tough win over Ding Junhui.

Despite a poor first session, the world number one bounced back and held off everything Ding threw back at him to get over the winning line.

When sealing the match-winning pots, Selby let out his emotion by shouting “come on” before thumping the table with his hand to celebrate the victory.

Higgins though enjoyed a rather more comfortable passage to his first World Championship final in six years after a dominating performance against Hawkins.

The Scot raced into a 4-0 lead from the outset and despite a brief fightback from Hawkins, Higgins dominated throughout.

The World Championship final starts on Sunday at 2pm.