World number one Ronnie O’Sullivan said he has gone through a period of feeling scared to play snooker as he reached the Tour Championship final.
The seven-time world champion hit three century breaks as he beat Gary Wilson 10-7 on Friday in Manchester.
But he revealed he felt like he has been suffering from the “yips”, and has tried to “change his mindset”.
“I’m just trying really hard to not get down on myself,” said the 48-year-old, who has won five events this season.
O’Sullivan hit breaks of 102 and 110 to turn a 2-0 deficit into a 4-2 lead but fellow Englishman Wilson compiled runs of 83, 84, 82 and 96 to level at 7-7.
However, he barely got a look-in from there as O’Sullivan won the final three frames, helped by visits of 98 and 129.
O’Sullivan, who faces Mark Allen or Mark Williams in Sunday’s final, told ITV4: “It’s not easy. Maybe two weeks ago I’d have mentally thrown the towel in, just because I wasn’t flowing.
“But I just thought, ‘just keep going, keep going’ and just focus on some of the positives that might be round the corner.”
He says he has been speaking regularly with psychiatrist Steve Peters, adding: “I’ve just got to commit to it now for a good year to try to get myself out of this sort of hole I’ve got myself in mentally with the obsession of the game, tinkering.
“I know I’m never going to stop tinkering, but I have to somehow get sort of my head strong enough to be able to deal with it and not go too deep into that horrible murky world that it is.
“Every sportsman – maybe golfers, tennis players, snooker players – I suppose we all do it, but I went so deep into that it’s like detoxing myself from it.
“It kind of felt like I’ve had the yips in a way – mentally, physically – it feels like you get scared to even want to go and play.
“That’s not a nice place to be, so I’ve got nothing left to do other than to try to get myself mentally out of it and hopefully my game will start to flow again, maybe.”
The Tour Championship is in its sixth edition after being launched in 2019 for the top players on snooker’s one-year ranking list.
This is the third time O’Sullivan has reached the final, having won the inaugural event by beating Neil Robertson before losing to the Australian in the event’s showpiece two years later.
Northern Ireland’s Allen and Welshman Williams, both seeking their first Tour Championship title, contest the second semi-final on Saturday, starting their best-of-19 encounter at 13:00 BST.
