Akani Songsermsawad will hope to keep his superb run at the Six Red World Championship going when he faces Kyren Wilson in the semi-finals.

Songsermsawad, known as Sunny Akani, beat Jimmy Robertson and Mohamed Khairy in the group stage but was edged out 5-4 by China’s Ding Junhui to finish second in the table. The Thai player then took out Scotland’s Stephen Maguire 6-5 in the last-16 before repeating that scoreline against Mohammed Shehab of the United Arab Emirates in the quarter-finals.

However, things are about to get a lot tougher as he faces in-form Englishman Wilson for a place in the final. The 26-year-old from Kettering reached the World Championship semi-finals while he won the recent Paul Hunter Classic and is clearly a step up in class from the players that Akani has dealt with to date.

He also made the last-eight at the Riga Master and is 1.36 to advance to the final having downed Anthony McGill and Stuart Bingham in the knockout phase, with Akani on offer at 3.00 to pull off a shock victory.

The 22-year-old Bangkok-born star is sure to have the crowd right behind him in his home city and will doubtless play in front of a packed house at the Bangkok Convention Center. The question is can he hold his nerve as the pressure mounts towards the business end of the tournament? He has a couple of quarter-final appearances in his fledgling career and has met Wilson twice to date in ranking events but is yet to register a victory. He would be a popular winner in this shortened-format match.