Shaun Murphy was the party pooper but that did little to suppress his delight at reaching the ManBetX Welsh Open final.

The world No.10 sealed a late-night 6-5 victory over Yan Bingtao - who turns 20 on Sunday - at Cardiff’s Motorpoint Arena, coming from behind to book a date with world No.8 Kyren Wilson.

The 2005 world champion held his nerve to strike breaks of 61 and 109 in the final two frames, dashing Yan’s hopes of reaching a first ranking event final since the Riga Masters - which he won - at the beginning of the season.

And despite inflicting defeat on the precocious birthday boy, Murphy was simply a man relieved as he placed himself on the cusp of lifting a ninth ranking event trophy.

“He started the game when he was 19 and he finished when he was 20 - he had a birthday halfway through it!” he joked.

“I’m very happy to be in the final, and I’m relieved - that’s my overriding feeling, and I’m looking forward to getting a rest and hopefully coming back and giving it a crack tomorrow.

“When the equation in the last two frames was ‘right, Shaun - you’ve got to win these last two frames otherwise it’s over,’ that seemed to reset things for me and make the equation a lot simpler.”

The world No.20 raced into an early 2-0 lead after an opening frame break of 50, before Murphy’s identical effort in the third helped him restore parity at the mid-session interval.

The eight-time ranking event winner then took the next two but Yan hit swiftly back, making an 83 in the seventh to help him regain the lead at 5-4 with just two frames to play.

But the experienced 37-year-old had enough to get over the line in the Welsh capital, making those bold efforts of 61 and 109 to line up a tantalising final with Wilson.

And Murphy, who has enjoyed an upturn in form this season after his recent struggles, knows he will need to be more clinical if he is to topple the man who started his week in Wales with a maximum break of 147.

“It’s a good thing that I’ve got a decent trophy cabinet at home, because on that performance Kyren is going to be licking his lips thinking ‘this is going to be easy!” he added.

“If I play like that, there’s only going to be one winner - he’s in red-hot form in the last couple of weeks and he’s hit a maximum, and some may even make him favourite for the match on current form.”

In the afternoon session's first semi-final, Wilson edged past five-time world champion Ronnie O'Sullivan by the same scoreline as Murphy, clinching the final-frame decider with an impressive 59 to give him a shot at his first ranking event title for over a year.

Watch the Welsh Open live on Eurosport and Eurosport Player with analysis from Jimmy White and Neal Foulds