Batam (Indonesia), Aug 30: Thais Pramote Teerawiwatana and Tesana Panvisvas reached the men's doubles final at the Indonesian Open badminton championships today with a 7-15 15-9 15-8 win over the unseeded home pair of Chandra Wijaya and Halim Haryanto. China's top seed and world No. 1 Chen Hong easily downed South Korea's joint ninth seed Lee Hyun-Il 15-6 15-5 to reach the men's singles final of the us $ 170,000 tournament at the Batam indoor stadium.
Teerawiwatana and Panvisvas, the second seeds, struggled to cope with the attacking play of the Indonesians and succumbed easily in the first set. But after leveling at a set apiece, Teerawiwatana and Panvisvas raced out to an early 6-0 lead in the third.
Wijaya and Haryanto fought back and got within six points at 14-8 but could not get closer in the hour-long match, despite forcing the Thais to give up service at match point twice.

The Thais were to play either Malaysia's Choong Tan Fook and Lee Wan Wah or the Chinese pairing of Sang Yang and Zheng Bo who clash in the other semifinal later today.

In the women's singles, China's Xie Xingfang defeated compatriot Gong Ruina 11-9 8-11 11-8. She will play Hong Kong's Wang Chen, who defeated world championship finalist Zhou Mi 11-7 11-9 for her first win over the Chinese fifth seed in seven attempts.
In-form world mixed doubles champions Ra Kyung-Min and Kim Dong-Moon continued their march toward a second straight title in two weeks with an easy 15-2 15-6 semifinal win over England's Nathan Robertson and Gail Emms. Bureau Report