Doherty distraught as Fu marches on
The Hong Kong player emulated James Wattana as he maintained his status for being the tournament's surprise package, and now only Peter Ebdon or Shaun Murphy stand between him and the final.
Doherty, so impressive against Matthew Stevens in the second round, was hot favourite to win the match, and at 8-6 up looked set to complete a resounding win.
But Fu, a 125-1 outsider at the start of the tournament, has been producing some composed break-building in Sheffield, and when he made a 110 to level it at 8-8, it was clear he would not lie down.
Yesterday's play was largely tactical and two consecutive frames, which took the score to 10-10, lasted a total of an hour and three quarters.
After the interval, however, the 28-year-old qualifier took his chances when among the balls, and contributions of 60 twice and 75 secured his progress.
Doherty admitted he had missed a golden opportunity to repeat his 1997 World Championship triumph.
"I blew it," said the Irishman. "I can't grumble because I had my chances.
"I'm very disappointed to have played the way I did after my performance against Matthew Stevens.
"I lost a lot of silly frames early in the match. But I have to take my hat off to Marco. He played well tactically and made some good breaks."
Earlier, Graeme Dott thwarted a magnificent fightback from Australia's Neil Robertson to reach the semi-finals for the second time in three years.
The Scot let slip leads of 10-5 and 12-8 as Robertson forced a deciding frame before going through 13-12 to book a clash with Ronnie O'Sullivan, his conqueror in the 2004 final.
O'Sullivan, who had been level at 4-4 with Mark Williams after their opening session, had much the better of things when the match resumed and stormed 10-6 ahead.
He went on to complete the job winning 13-11.
Defending champion Shaun Murphy crashed out to Peter Ebdon in his quarter-final after a nightmare first session in which, other than a 64 in the last frame, he could barely get over 20.
Murphy, who lost the first seven frames of the match, rediscovered his trademark long potting to make breaks of 113, 83 twice and 77 to trail 10-6 heading into last night's conclusion.
There was to be no comeback from Murphy, however, for he won only one frame in the evening session to bow out 13-7 as the Crucible curse of first-time champions defending the title struck again.
But in a repeat of what had happened on Tuesday, Ebdon again missed a fine chance of a maximum 147 break and this time got even closer.
In frame seven the 2002 champion had potted 12 reds and blacks but missed the next pot to a middle pocket when bridging over a ball.
He got to the final red in frame 11 with the ball just above the brown spot, but rattled it in the jaws of the green pocket.
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