Defending champion Michael van Gerwen has been knocked out of the PDC World Championship in a 6-3 defeat at the hands of Gary Anderson this evening.

The opening two sets of the contest were shared evenly, although 2011 finalist Anderson soon stormed ahead to open up a 3-1 lead over his opponent at Alexandra Palace.

Van Gerwen showed why he is ranked at number one in the world, however, battling back to level things up at the halfway stage of proceedings.

Having missed four darts to claim the seventh set, Van Gerwen provided Anderson with a glorious chance to take control of things once more, and the Scotsman did just that to retake the lead with a solid checkout.

The fourth seed did not look back from that stage, maintaining his impressive finishing to book his place in the final of the showpiece competition.

He will take on 16-time champion Phil Taylor, with The Power overcoming Raymond van Barneveld 6-2 in the night's other semi-final.

The match, which was a repeat of the 2007 final which the Dutchman came out on top in, failed to truly live up to expectation as Taylor brushed aside his opponent with relative ease.

Taylor took the opening two sets before Barney managed to level things up, although it was plain sailing from that point on for the Stoke thrower who did not drop another set.

Having failed to find any consistency to his game in the early stages, the 54-year-old finally managed to take his three-dart average above the 100 mark for the first time in the sixth set, cruising to the finish line in North London to set up a meeting with Anderson in tomorrow night's final.