Chen triumphed 5-11, 11-9, 13-15, 11-9, 3-11, 11-7, 11-8 to continue his remarkable run that started in the preliminary rounds.

Next up for the Taiwanese is China’s Ma Long, the top seed, who survived a major scare against surprise package Tristan Flore of France.

Flore took the match to a deciding game but eventually fell to an 11-7, 4-11, 4-11, 11-9, 12-10, 5-11, 1-11 defeat at the hands of the reigning world champion.

"I was good but not good enough," said the Frenchman.

"I was expecting that he would beat me easily but I fought hard.

"I think he was surprised."

The other men’s semi-final will be an all-Chinese encounter between number two seed Fan Zhendong and number three seed Xu Xin.

Fan beat fellow countryman Fang Bo 5-11, 11-13, 11-1, 11-7, 11-9, 11-6 and Xu defeated Hong Kong’s Wong Chun Ting 11-13, 11-8, 11-5, 11-1, 11-2.

In the women’s draw, The Netherlands' Li Jie continued to defy expectations by reaching the semi-finals with an 11-5, 11-7, 12-10, 11-6 victory over China’s Wen Jia.

Wen, an ITTF World Tour winner in China in 2011 and in Germany two years later, had earlier been taken the distance by Germany’s Han Ying before eventually claiming a 4-11, 7-11, 11-7, 6-11, 11-5, 11-9, 11-8 win.

"I watched her match against Han Ying and I knew she would be tired, so I had a good chance," said Li, who has reached her first semi-final of the year.

Standing between Li and the final is China’s Ding Ning, the number two seed, who ended the aspirations of 15-year-old Hina Hayata of Japan with an 8-11, 11-9, 11-4, 11-1, 11-7 success.

Ding’s compatriots Liu Shiwen, the top seed, and Zhu Yuling, the number three seed, will meet in the other semi-final after both overcame Singaporean opponents.

Liu beat Feng Tianwei 11-9, 11-7, 11-8, 6-11, 11-5 and Zhu downed Yu Mengyu 11-7, 11-3, 11-7, 11-4.

The semi-finals and finals in both the men’s and women’s singles are due to be played tomorrow.