Scotland's Stephen Hendry wasted little time in wrapping up a place in the World Championship semi-finals as he completed a 13-7 win over Ryan Day.
Resuming the quarter-final 11-5 ahead, the seven-time Crucible champion claimed a break of 48 to move to within one frame of victory.
Day battled and a 71 pulled him back to 12-7 but he conceded the match when he potted the white when well behind.
It is the first time Hendry, 39, has reached the semis since 2004.
"I am very happy," he told BBC Sport. "I was not coming in here with any great form under my belt with just one semi-final this season, but I knew if I could get past the first round anything could happen.
"It will have to improve if I am to win it. I am not scoring as heavy as I would like but my all-round game is pretty solid."
Hendry will now take on Ronnie O'Sullivan in what is expected to be a mouth-watering semi-final.
Hendry said: "I'll be taking on the best player in the world at the moment, right-handed, left-handed, one-legged, one-armed, whatever you want.
"He's knocking in centuries all over the place. He's a genius. I know I've got the game capable of beating him but I need to bring my best game out. He doesn't know what will happen if I start to fly, we could have a massive game on our hands.
"I just can't wait to get out there, I love playing Ronnie. There will probably be just two people supporting me but I played Jimmy White a few times so I'm used to it.
"If you look back at the record I've had here - six wins in seven years from 1990-96 - it can give you nothing but confidence."
Day's semi-final hopes seemed dashed as early as the first session when he lost seven straight frames to go 7-1 behind.
Hendry, who was 33-1 to win the title at the start of the tournament, continued his dominance in the second session, winning three of the closing four frames, to maintain his six-frame advantage.
606: DEBATEIn the final session, he went 12-5 ahead after a break of 48 which was kicked off with a superb red potted at a difficult angle.
Despite the seemingly hopeless situation, Day refused to throw in the towel and he reduced the deficit after Hendry missed a red to the corner when constructing a break of 46.
The Welshman claimed another with a break of 71 but the game was up when he fouled in the 20th frame.
"I think on the whole, through the match, Stephen played far more consistently than I did, there were one or two little edges that could have thrown one or two of the frames either way, and they fell on his side," said Day.
"There were a lot of easy balls missed and unforced errors, and I didn't deserve to win in any shape or form. It was pretty poor really. Maybe a lack of concentration constantly through the match and caused me to make unforced errors."
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