Mark Allen let a two-frame lead slip as the Antrim man lost 6-2 to Shaun Murphy in their Dafabet Masters semi-final at London’s Alexandra Palace.
Murphy set up a repeat of the 2012 title match with Neil Robertson, who continued his scintillating form with a 6-1 win over Ronnie O'Sullivan in the opening semi-final of the day.
Murphy reeled off six successive frames to beat Allen.
Allen looked in good shape to progress when breaks of 83 and 62 saw him take a 2-0 lead, but Englishman Murphy roared back in some style.
He edged the third frame before winning the next five with breaks of 80, 83, 76, 102 and 60.
Robertson will fancy his chances of repeating that success following his impressive demolition of O'Sullivan.
The Australian world number one, having produced what he described as one of the best performances of his career in beating Ali Carter 6-1 in the quarter-finals this week, was similarly ruthless as O'Sullivan suffered his first semi-final defeat in the competition after 10 successive wins.
And O'Sullivan conceded after the match that Robertson had exposed his weaknesses, while admitting he sensed such a result was coming having been "scraping through matches".
O'Sullivan, who had won 15 consecutive matches coming into the semi-final and was looking to win a third straight title following his successes at the Champion of Champions and UK Championship, said: "Neil played a great game and had me in lots of trouble.
"I missed a lot of balls and made a lot of mistakes. I knew it was coming eventually because I've been scraping through matches.
"The last time I played good consistent stuff was here and at the Welsh Open last season. Since then I've probably only played two good matches - the rest of the time I've just been digging in. Neil played well enough to expose my weaknesses - he took me apart."
