Birthday boy Ronnie O'Sullivan clinched a 6-4 come-from-behind victory against Anthony McGill to move into the semi-finals of the Coral UK Championship yesterday.

Four-time champion O'Sullivan, celebrating his 39th birthday, overcame a sluggish start to the quarter-final encounter with John Higgins conqueror McGill to clinch victory with one frame to spare at the Barbican Centre in York.

O'Sullivan, playing on a broken left ankle sustained while running last week, quickly found himself two frames down before two breaks of 38 got him on the board.

Further breaks of 98 and 125 in the fourth and fifth frames helped O'Sullivan, who compiled a 147 break to cap off a 6-0 last-16 whitewash of Matthew Selt on Thursday, into a 3-2 lead.

McGill levelled at 3-3 with breaks of 38 and 25, before O'Sullivan responded with a 57 and a follow-up 20 to retake the lead, and then won the next frame with a 33 and a 25 to close to within a frame of victory.

McGill was not about to throw in the towel and reduced his opponent's lead to 5-4 with a superbly-crafted century break in the ninth frame, but his resistance finally ended when O'Sullivan hit back with a 97 in the tenth to win the match and keep his hopes of winning a fifth title alive.

O'Sullivan was quick to pay tribute to McGill in a post-match interview, tipping the 23-year-old Glaswegian to win major tournaments in years to come.

"I just said to him afterwards, 'you got playing mate, you'll win tournaments playing (like) that'," O'Sullivan said.

"What a lovely personality, what a lovely guy and for snooker they're lucky to have someone who is a real eccentric, a bit like (Steve) Davis.

"He's just a lovely boy and I just hope he goes on to play snooker for years to come because snooker is lucky to have him."

O'Sullivan will face fellow Essex native Stuart Bingham today for a place in tomorrow's final after the Basildon man fought back from 4-1 and 5-3 down to beat Graeme Dott in another entertaining quarter-final.

Bingham, who thrashed Ricky Walden in the last-16 on Wednesday, made an encouraging start by winning the first frame but breaks of 68, 68 and 92 helped Dott race into a 4-1 lead and seemingly into the last four.

Bingham hit back with scores of 31 and 108 to take the next two frames and reduce his opponent's lead to 4-3, but Dott moved to within a frame of victory by winning the eighth courtesy of breaks of 54 and 65.

Breaks of 32 and 64 in the next two frames helped Bingham level the match at 5-5 and he completed a remarkable comeback victory in fine style by winning the deciding frame with a break of 103 to leave Dott stunned.

Bingham won the Shanghai Masters and the Haining Open leading up to the UK Championship, but he admitted that victory here would cap off what has already been a very successful season for the 38-year-old.

"This is what you dream of, trying to win one of the big ones, and you still class this as one of the big ones. It'd be a dream come true as they say," he said in a post-match interview.

Judd Trump also booked his place in the semi-finals with a resounding 6-1 victory against Mark Davis.

Breaks of 72 and 58 saw 2011 winner Trump race into a 2-0 lead before Davis responded with a 58 of his own to get on the board by winning the third frame.

Any hope the match would be as closely fought as the two earlier last-eight matches soon evaporated, though, as Trump registered half-century breaks to win the subsequent four frames and wrap up victory with the minimum of fuss.