Thai ace Boonsak Ponsana battled through a tight three-set match to beat Vietnam's Nguyen Tien Minh at the Singapore Open Saturday and set up a men's singles final with China's Wang Zhengming.
The unseeded Thai won the opening game of the semi-final at the Singapore Indoor Stadium comfortably only for sixth-seeded Minh to fight back strongly, coming from 14-9 down to take the second set.
Boonsak, 30, looked to be heading for defeat as he lagged 9-2 behind in the deciding game, but he came back to narrowly win the final set and take the match 21-12, 18-21, 21-19.
The win kept alive his hopes of taking the Singapore title for a second time after first winning it in 2007.
The Thai, ranked 32nd in the world, will meet Wang in the final on Sunday after the 22-year-old Chinese player dispatched Danish teenager Viktor Axelsen 21-13, 21-14 in a battle of former World Junior champions.
Wang, who beat third seed Kenichi Tago of Japan in the second round, won the World Junior title in 2008 but has yet to win a senior badminton title.
In the women's singles, second seed Juliane Schenk of Germany came through a three-set battle with third seed Sung Ji-Hyun, defeating the South Korean 21-11, 20-22, 21-12.
Schenk, the world number six, will face fourth seed Cheng Shao-chieh in Sunday's final after the Taiwanese player eliminated the last remaining local hope Xing Aiying 23-21, 21-7 in the other semi-final.
A number of the world's leading players have opted to skip the Singapore Open as it falls outside the qualifying period for the upcoming London Olympics.
