Scot Alan McManus failed to reach the Betfred World Championship final after losing 17-11 to Ding Junhui at the Crucible semi final. 

China's snooker flag-bearer fired his seventh century of the semi-final,  123, to complete a 17-11 victory over McManus, ranked 29 in the world.

Before Ding's exploits, the record in Sheffield stood at six centuries in a match, achieved by Mark Selby and Ronnie O'Sullivan, but he has rewritten that corner of the history books and also becomes Asia's first World Championship finalist, a landmark moment for the sport.

His earlier tons in the match were 100, 131, 100, 128, 138 and 113, and in a startling run of scoring he also fired breaks of 84, 62, 90, 97, 80 and 60.

The 29-year-old has been tipped to dominate snooker since his teenage years.

He won the UK Championship at the age of 18 and in 2013/14 matched Stephen Hendry's record of five ranking titles in a season, becoming world number one in December 2014.

McManus had hoped it would be third time lucky in a world title semi final, having previously lost twice in 1991/92 and 1992/93,  but it was not to be. 

McManus,  a qualifier who far outstripped his own tournament expectations, felt he could have contested the match better.

He said: "Overall I'm disappointed. The best man won and you've got to face that.

"The scoring Ding produced was up there with anything that's ever been seen here. He was pretty hot. I expected that.

"I knew conditions-wise the table was really nice and if I left him chances he punish me fully.

"I'm a bit disappointed I didn't take all my chances. I felt like I was really going to give him a game because I felt good but it didn't come to pass."

McManus, 45, is confident Ding can carry off the title, with Mark Selby and Marco Fu vying to join him in the final.

"I think there's only one person stopping him and it's himself. He's favourite in my eyes and it'll take a good performance to beat him," McManus said.

Ding was determined to stay calm and concentrate on the task that lies ahead.

"I feel peaceful at the moment, just like normal. I want to be excited but my heart tells me it's like normal," he said.

"The tournament hasn't finished yet, it's still going on and the last match starts tomorrow at two o'clock, so I want to stay focused.

"In the first few years of playing snooker I didn't really know about the World Championship because they didn't show this tournament much on TV in China.

"The first dream was to win any tournament, then after turning professional in 2003 I wanted to win the World Championship title.

"There's more and more supporters in China, it's crazy like that. I want to stay away from that and keep calm.

"I've had a lot of messages. My phone's almost blown up."