Crucible nearly man Matthew Stevens hit back to draw level with Ian McCulloch in his Embassy World Championship semi-final today.
Stevens has lost three semi-finals and one final on snooker's biggest stage and he trailed 6-2 after the first session with McCulloch.
But the Welshman reversed the tables by winning the second session by the same scoreline to draw level at 8-8 in the best of 33 marathon.
Stevens had struggled to find his form yesterday, making too many errors as McCulloch rattled in two centuries and four breaks of 50 or more.
But he was back to somewhere near his best while this time it was the turn of McCulloch to make uncharacteristic mistakes.
Stevens strung together six breaks of 50 or more to emphasise his dominance against the Preston potter.
Stevens won the opener with break of 58 and 61 and a run of 62 settled the next.
He was first amongst the balls in frame 11 but after compiling 34 he broke down when missing a red along the rail into the black pocket.
McCulloch, a 100-1 outsider at the start of the tournament, grabbed his first decent opportunity of the session with both hands and a 72 put him 7-4 ahead.
But Williams again chipped away at his advantage in the final frame before theinterval and a final 28 meant he only trailed 7-5.
Stevens also won three of the four frames when the players returned to the table with the help of breaks of 83, 64 and 59 although McCulloch's 99 in frame 14 was the highest break of the session.
In the other semi-final local favourite Shaun Murphy produced a stunning session of snooker to storm into a 9-7 lead against Peter Ebdon.
Murphy had trailed 6-2 overnight but won seven of the eight frames onresumption to edge ahead 9-7 against the 2002 world champion.
Ebdon was clearly feeling the pressure being exerted by the high quality play of the Rotherham-based player and uncharacteristic errors started to creep into his game.
Murphy began the session with back-to-back centuries and a further three 50-plus breaks put him in command.
Murphy, a 22-year-old 150-1 outsider at the start of the tournament, hadalready knocked out two previous world champions in John Higgins and Steve Davis.
Born-again Christian Shaun Murphy will have no qualms about competing on Sunday if he overcomes Peter Ebdon to reach his first Embassy World Championship final.
Murphy, a 150-1 outsider a fortnight ago, will go into Saturday's final session of the semi-final locked at 12-12 with the 2002 world champion.
