World Snooker Championship final: Graeme Dott's hopes still finely balanced

• Graeme Dott must overcome a two-frame defecit today if he is to become World Snooker Champion

The Australian upset his mother when he gave up on education to pursue a snooker career, but the decision was paying off last night as he fought back from 5-3 behind to lead Dott 9-7 heading into today's concluding two sessions.

Making the experience all the more sweet for Robertson was the presence of his now immensely proud mother Alison Hunter in the Crucible crowd, after she caught a flight from Melbourne while his semi-final was still unresolved.

Robertson won all four frames before the mid-session interval last night to surge ahead. He had been delighted when he discovered his mother had jetted in, setting off when he established a 15-9 lead over Ali Carter at the last-four stage.

It is a gamble which will pay off handsomely if her son today becomes the first player from outside Britain and Ireland since Cliff Thorburn in 1980 to win the world title.

After beating Carter to reach the final, Robertson suggested he would check flight times to see if there was any chance of flying his mother in from the other side of the world – only to find a telephone message saying she had already departed.

Dott made a bright start to the final in a subdued Crucible.

The Scot's manager Pat Mooney had resigned earlier in the day from the board of the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association. Last year's world champion John Higgins has also been suspended by the WPBSA, following News Of The World allegations that Higgins and Mooney struck a deal to fix frames in return for huge money.

Thirty-two-year-old Dott, who won the title in 2006, kept his composure in testing circumstances to open up a 5-3 lead, making breaks of 80, 52 and 57.

Robertson, in his first World Championship final, made just one break over 50. But that changed in the evening as he had runs of 61, 90 and 79, and rocked Dott by pinching the third frame from a position where he needed a snooker. He found that snooker but by taking pink off the final red the best he could manage was taking the frame to a respotted black. Robertson settled for that and potted the black, prompting a familiar exuberant celebration, not for the first time in the last fortnight.

Dott scrambled his way back to 8-7 and had a chance to pinch the next frame. But the Larkhall man mouthed an obscenity after fluffing a swerve shot in the final frame. The mistake allowed Robertson to return to the table and clinch a 9-7 overnight lead with a break of 70. His first task after leaving the arena was probably to check his telephone for news from Norway.

There was a distraction for Robertson heading into the match, as his Oslo-based Norwegian girlfriend Mille was due to give birth yesterday.

"Hopefully she can just hang on for a few days yet," Robertson said. "She's told me just to play and not worry about it too much. Being a first time, usually they're a little bit late. Every single part of my life right now is so exciting. "We were talking about the due date, how wouldn't it be funny if I got to the final? Now it's happened, it's really strange."