Snooker: Small's final ambition crowned with commanding show

Chris Small, a tall, meticulous Scot whose career has been under threat from back and neck problems, achieved a life's ambition by reaching the final of the LG Cup with a 6-2 win over Jimmy Michie, another member of the circuit's supporting cast now with a week to remember.

The world No 29 from Leith derived some benefit from inserting magnets in his shoes, but he has been kept on the road only by "unbelievably painful" monthly steroid injections in his buttocks.

His 5-1 wins over John Higgins and Ronnie O'Sullivan were characterised by regular heavy break-making. He did not produce such high quality yesterday but, apart from two loose frames which saw his advantage reduced from 4-0 to 4-2, he was always in command.

Michie, a bustling Yorkshireman who stands 55th in the rankings, had shown both grit and fearlessness in beating Northern Ireland's Gerrard Greene from three down with four to play in the quarter-finals, but his yen for risk-taking sometimes backfires, as it did when he committed himself to the difficult pink which cost him yesterday's 41-minute second frame.

Michie's consolation was his best payday ­ £21,250 ­ while Small, through to his first world-ranking final, is assured £42,500, which could rise to £82,500 ­ vast sums for players of their ranking.

"I felt I was on a hiding to nothing today after beating John and Ronnie. I was a bit tight but after I'd won the seventh frame I couldn't see myself losing. I wasn't bothered how I played. The result was everything," said Small.

Steve Davis's rebirth as a contender, having reached only one final-16 in last season's nine world-ranking events and a single quarter-final the year before, was strong enough to pit him against the battle-hardened Scot Alan McManus in the other semi-final last night at the age of 45.

It was at the Guild Hall that he won his first major title, the UK Championship, in 1980, the first of six UK's he secured here in the Eighties, a decade which also brought him six world titles. At first he resisted his inevitable slide down the rankings, but now he has stopped competing against his past he is able ­ not needing the winnings ­ to enjoy events in an almost Corinth-ian spirit. He is revelling in the challenge of the moment.

His 5-4 win over Jimmy White, his 31st in their 46 encounters spread over 21 years, came courtesy of an outlandish fluke in the deciding frame of a contest which a full house found no less absorbing for a frequency of errors which neither would have been guilty of in their primes.

Abruptly, in his 5-1 defeat of world No 2 Mark Williams, Davis rediscovered that prime, then ­ from two down with three to play in the quarter-finals ­ added a third top-10 scalp in the shape of Paul Hunter, winner of the last two B&H Masters.

"There's nothing like it," Davis said of the thrill of winning in front of a sell-out crowd. "When it comes together like this, you've got to savour it."