Stephen Lee won all four frames before the mid-session interval against red-hot favourite Mark Williams to reduce his deficit to 7-5 in the Embassy World Championship semi-final at The Crucible Theatre this afternoon.
Williams had gone into this afternoon's Sheffield showdown as the 1-50 on favourite to clinch a place in the final for a third time.
The Welshman had been in devastating form in the first session when he had been aided by breaks of 102, 53 and 63 - but struggled to reproduce that level of play today.
Lee drew the first blood of the afternoon without Williams potting a ball after runs of 28 and 25 put the frame out of reach of the 2000 champion.
Williams was clearly still not into his stride in the next when another modest scoring frame was decided by Lee's final visit to the table which produced a 34 break.
Lee was first amongst the balls in frame 11 with 33 and then an extremely scrappy period of play followed before the 28-year-old made it three in a row.
A pre-interval whitewash was then completed by Lee with the aid of a 56 break to reduce Williams' lead to two frames.
In the other semi-final Paul Hunter requires just six more frames to overcome Ken Doherty and reach his first world final.
The Yorkshireman will resume tonight holding an 11-5 advantage after a high quality second session.
The problems surrounding the match table yesterday seemed to have been rectified as a total of three century breaks and five others over 50 illuminated the eight frames.
Doherty, 6-2 overnight, won the opening two with the aid of a 62 and 111 but Hunter regained the initiative by triumphing in five of the next six.
The 24-year-old put together runs of 61, 73, 135, 84 and 43 while the only notable reply from Doherty during that spell was a 115 in frame 14.