Budapest: The Indian pair of A. Sharath Kamal and G. Sathiyan succeeded in toppling experienced top seeds Kwan Kit Ho and Chun Ting Wong of Hong Kong in the mens doubles to enter the final of the ITTF World Tour Hungary Open here on Friday.
In a hard-fought five-setter, the Indian qualifiers won 11-7, 12-10, 4-11, 4-11, 11-9 and earned a meeting with second seeds Duda Benedikt and Franziska Patrick of Germany in the final to be played on Saturday. The Germans defeated Poland's Dyjas Jakub and Belgium's Nuytinck Cedric 11-4, 11-5, 8-11, 11-3.
Later on Friday night, Sharath and Manika Batra will take on German duo of Patrick Franziska and Petrissa Solja in the mixed doubles semifinal.
On Thursday, Sharath and Sathiyan had defeated home favourites Nandor Ecseki and Adam Szudi 11-8, 11-7, 11-8 in the quarterfinal, after having sent the Japanese pair of Shunsuke Togami and Yukia Uda packing 11-6, 11-8, 8-11, 9-11, 11-9 in the previous round.
As for Sharath and Manika, they got a walkover in the quarterfinal from the second-seeded Japanese pair of Jun Mizutani and Mima Ito after Mizutani pulled out because of a neck injury he suffered during his singles event.
Manika Batra failed to go past Japanese Miu Hirano in the women's singles pre-quarterfinal as the Indian lost 9-11, 1-11, 7-11, 7-11. Manika, who beat Szu-Yu Chen of Taipei 4-3 in a tough round of 32 match, was down 0-3 before scoring a strong comeback win.
