Abu Dhabi: The Sri Lankan pair of Chinthak Gunaratne and Nuvan Abeysinghe will take on the top doubles combination of Afsin Bozargzadeh and Santhosh Kumar in the final of the ISC Open men's doubles event here today.
Gunaratne, who has played for the Lankan national senior team and Abeysinghe, a Lankan junior national, did well to overcome A.R. Shibu and Asif Andriana in the semifinals 15-11, 15-9.
The Lankan pair have raised the level of the country's oldest badminton tournament and with Andriana, an Indonesian club level player; there was an added touch of quality play.
However, the Lankans run into the top two singles players in Afsin and Santhosh the latter two also featuring in the singles final today. Afshin is a former Iranian national player and the defending champion while Santhosh Kumar has been the UAE champion for many years.
In other matches on Tuesday evening, K.S. Lalmony won his veterans' singles semifinals against A.M. Nizar 15-5, 11-15, 15-3.
Lalmony will meet Abdul Latheef in the final. Afsin stayed in line for a triple when he partnered Azadeh to an easy 15-2, 15-1 win over A.M. Faji and Preeti in the mixed doubles semifinals.
Also in contention for a triple was Santhosh who made it to the veterans' doubles final.
Santhosh Kumar and K.S. Lalmony won their semifinal against Mohammad Azam and Suresh Kumar 17-14, 15-10, 15-3 and now take on A.M. Nizar and N.D. Vijayan in the final.
