Neil Robertson admitted he had to put personal feeling aside when beating Kurt Maflin in the quarter-finals of the Welsh Open on Friday.

Robertson advanced to the last four after a 5-4 triumph over the Norwegian in Cardiff and will next face Iran’s Hossein Vafaei for a place in the final.

The Australian former world champion is good friends with Maflin, who was born in London but now plays under the Norwegian flag, and he confessed that staying in the moment was tough due to the man in the opposite corner.

“It was about concentration and being brutal in the moment, because when I came to the table I was thinking what a way for him to lose if I win the frame from here,” he told World Snooker.

“On a personal level I love the guy. We spend Christmas together in Norway. I just had to tell my head to shut up and pot the balls.”

The 2010 Crucible champion found himself 4-2 down at the Motorpoint Arena but managed to rattle off three consecutive frames, and he will be going for a second ranking title this campaign after taking the Riga Masters last summer.

He also reached the final of the International Championship in China and the last four of the Masters, with Dafabet making the Aussie ace a 1.22 favourite to advance to Sunday’s final.

Vafaei is priced as the 4.20 outsider on Saturday evening but is not without hope after seeing off Mark Selby 4-3 in the last-16 and 24-year-old Scottish star Scott Donaldson on Friday.

It will be ‘The Prince of Persia’s’ second ranking event semi-final after his excellent run at the 2017 China Open.