Akani Songsermsawad, the last Thai standing in the SangSom 6 Red World Championship, came a cropper in the semi-finals at the BCC Hall at CentralPlaza Ladprao last night.
Akani, who had edged five-time Arab champion Mohamed Shehab of the United Arab Emirates 6-5 in a four-hour quarter-final on Friday night, was shown the exit by Englishman Kyren Wilson, who won 7-5.
Earlier in the first semi-final, world No.6 Ding Junhui of China beat Belgian Luca Brecel 7-6 to book his place in the final, which takes place at 3pm today at the same venue.
The champion will take home 3.5 million baht in prize money from the total purse of 10 million baht.
Akani, who was helped along in the tournament by drawing relatively weaker opponents, finally ran out of luck as he found Wilson too hot to handle.
The Thai cueist, ranked No.76 in the world, did put up a fight but he was only able to bring out his best when Wilson was just one frame away from a place in the title showdown.
It was composed performance from Wilson, now ranked eighth on the Main Tour, which points to an exciting clash for this year's crown with Ding.
Ding is now poised to become only the second player to claim two 6 Red titles, following in the footsteps of Englishman Mark Davis who won the crown in 2012 and 2013.
It was touch and go for the Chinese who led 2-0 and then, as Brecel fought back, was four times pegged back on level terms until the Belgian potter went ahead for the first time after 11 frames.
Now it was Ding's turn to show his fighting qualities and a break of 57 set up the decider in which he rammed home the highest of the match -- a 72 -- to end Brecel's gutsy challenge.
Earlier breaks flowed with Ding responsible for top runs of 64 and 58 while Brecel made 71, 64 and 49.
"That was a narrow squeak," said Ding. "I couldn't shake off Luca at all but in the last two frames I played my best snooker of the match."
On Friday night, Ding beat Thailand's Ratchapol Pu-Ob-Orm (James Wattana) 6-2 in the quarter-finals. Brecel, dubbed the "Belgian Bullet", defeated Tom Ford of England 6-3 in the last eight.
A total of six Thai players took part in the tournament. Former champion Thepcahiya Un-nooh, world No.39 Noppon Saengkham, amateur Thanawat Tirapongpaiboon and female player Nutcharut Wongharuthai all bowed out in the first round.
