Stephen Hendry was in dynamite form for the second day in a row as he took another significant step towards the capture of a fourth Welsh Open title.
Snooker's most prolific builder of breaks was again in heavy scoring mood as he fired in a hat-trick of century breaks to highlight his impressive 5-2 quarter-final victory over Dubliner Ken Doherty.
"Basically I picked up from where I left off in my last match," said a delighted Hendry, who also made two tons in comfortably beating Graeme Dott 5-1 in the last 16.
"The only downside about the way I'm feeling at the moment is that I've got to rein myself in because I fancy potting anything and I might be taking on a few too many risky ones."
Despite kicking his heels for two and a quarter hours - the match was scheduled to begin at seven o'clock but did not get underway until 9.15 due to the insane roll on/roll off format - Hendry made an explosive start as back-to-back clearances of 119 and 128 carried him 2-0 ahead.
Battling Doherty stole the third frame on the pink and looked set for 2-2 at the mid-session interval before missing a brown to a baulk pocket trying to develop the last red, awkwardly glued to a side cushion.
It proved to be a costly mistake as Hendry, who had won only seven of their previous 15 matches in world ranking events, gave himself a useful cushion at 3-1 by clearing last red to pink.
Another superb break of 103 - his 649th ton in professional competition - propelled Hendry 4-1 in front and two frames later they were shaking hands after Hendry's 50 clearance from Doherty's inexcusable missed red using the rest.
"There have been quite a few matches in the past when I've totally dominated against Ken but he's taken all the scrappy frames and ended up beating me," said Hendry, who now faces English left-hander Mark King for a place in Sunday's final against Ronnie O'Sullivan or Barry Hawkins.
"That's why I was pleased I got the chance to finish it off when I did.
"The first half of the season was a disaster for me but I'm hitting the ball really well now and I'm looking forward to the weekend," added Hendry, who has not lifted a world ranking trophy since the British Open in November 2003.
King rekindled his love affair with the Newport Centre by edging into the semi-finals with a 5-4 victory over Ryan Day at the South Wales venue.
King reached the final at Newport in 1997 and the semi-finals a year later before the event moved to Cardiff.
The 30-year-old, a semi-finalist in the Travis Perkins UK Championship two months ago, is enjoying a resurgence two years after rashly threatening to quit the sport when his mother, Sandra, was jailed for life for the murder of her cousin.
O'Sullivan had earlier kept his title defence on track after surviving a nail-biting finish against Australian Neil Robertson.
The current world champion knocked in three century breaks to storm into a 4-1 lead but came close to elimination before booking his semi-final place by holding his nerve in the deciding frame to win 5-4.
"My timing totally went and in the end I didn't fancy getting on one ball to the next," said O'Sullivan.
"I had a chance to win every frame from 4-2 and didn't do it so that started to play on my mind. I missed really silly balls and my positional play was poor.
"I've been working on some technical things to get my consistency back and that might take time, because when my game went it was awful.
"It was difficult to see how I was going to get over the line but a lot of that was down to Neil because he put me under pressure, didn't lie down and made it tough. All credit to him. He's a very, very good player and definitely a future champion."
World number 43 Hawkins beat Peter Ebdon 5-3 in the other quarter-final.
