By John Curtis, PA Sport

Matthew Stevens was able to celebrate reaching his first Embassy World Championship final on Saturday after finally seeing off the challenge of crowd favourite Joe Swail at the Crucible Theatre.

The 22-year-old Welshman had been given a fright when outsider Swail, the first Northern Ireland player in the semi-final for 15 years, had a spell when he won six out of seven frames in the middle of the match.

That reduced Stevens' lead from 12-6 to just one frame at 13-12 against his opponent who had started the tournament a fortnight ago as a 100-1 outsider.

But the 2000 Benson and Hedges Masters champion then enjoyed the better of a tense and scrappy session.

Stevens won the next three frames to go into the mid-session interval needing just one frame for victory - and just under half an hour later had completed a 17-12 success.

Stevens, who only turned professional four years ago, has still to win a ranking tournament.

But he has now appeared in the final of all three of snooker's 'big three' tournaments this season after losing the Liverpool Victoria UK Championship to Williams and then defeating Ken Doherty in the Benson showpiece.

Now he will step onto the biggest stage of all, although the achievements of Swail in this season's competition will live long in the memory.

He had to qualify to play at the Crucible and then came back from the dead to defeat John Parrott in the second round by winning the last five frames after trailing 12-8.