White will meet Peter Ebdon in the last four in Glasgow

The Whirlwind looked set to secure a comfortable victory in Glasgow at 4-2 up before he missed a pink to let Ian McCulloch in.

But the 41-year-old produced a 57 clearance to the pink to win the eighth for a 5-3 victory.

It is White's fourth semi-final in a major tournament this season.

"I've become tired mentally because I've got too involved in thinking about the rankings, but now I've got to where I want to be I can chill out a bit," he said.

"It's a magic feeling to be going to the world championship without having to think about the top 16 for the first time in about 10 years."

White will play Peter Ebdon in the semi-finals after the seventh seed knocked out world champion Mark Williams.

Ebdon, who will be bidding to become on the 10th player to win back-to-back ranking titles after victory in the Irish Masters, put together breaks of 40, 52, 64 and 59 to lead 3-1 at the interval.

Paul Hunter fired in breaks of 56, 117, 80 and 121 to beat Ronnie O'Sullivan 5-2.

If Hunter goes on to win the tournament he will pip O'Sullivan to the LG Electronics Tour Order of Merit title.

Elsewhere, Ken Doherty scraped past local hero Stephen Hendry to secure the last semi-final place.

Doherty won two frames on the black before running out a 5-4 winner against the seven-times world champion.

"Stephen doesn't like getting involved in safety battles, so he tries to pot his way out of trouble," Doherty said.

Hendry added: "I didn't play well at all. I was scrubbing for frames the whole match and in the end I lost another scrappy frame."