Phil Taylor overcame a stern test from Dennis Smith before clinching a potentially explosive semi-final against Alan Warriner in the PDC World Championship at the Circus Tavern.

Warriner beat Roland Scholten earlier on Friday and then said he was looking forward to "bullying" the 10-time world champion.

Warriner has been unhappy about the level of attention that Taylor has been receiving this week and is relishing the chance to take him on.

But it looked briefly as though he might be denied his wish.

Smith was in fine form early on against "The Power" and he led 3-2 at one stage before Taylor's class saw him take three sets in a row to close out the match.

The thing with Phil is that he has never been bullied Taylor's next opponent Alan Warriner

Warriner set up the meeting with Taylor by beating Scholten 5-2.

When the pencil-thin Dutchman Scholten won the first two sets it looked as though Warriner was in trouble.

But the 'Ice Man' took charge and reeled off the next five sets to move into the last four, and he is relishing the chance of tackling Taylor.

"The thing with Phil is that he has never been bullied," said Warriner. "I'm going to stare him in the face, I'm going to do everything."

Canada's John Part swept into the semi-finals with a 5-0 victory over Chris Mason.

Part had struggled to a 5-3 win over Scotland's Jamie Harvey in the previous round but he made no mistake this time with a dominant performance.