Top seeds Leander Paes and Lukas Dlouhy edged towards back-to-back titles as they advanced to the finals of the AIG Open in Tokyo on Saturday.
The Indo-Czech pair beat USA's Robert Kendrick and Finn Jarkko Nieminen 6-4, 7-6 (4) in an hour and 11 minutes to extend their winning streak to seven matches.
Paes-Dlouhy, who did not face a break point in the match, captured their first team title last week in Bangkok.
They face tricky opponents in Mikhail Youzhny and Mischa Zverev, who eliminated the second and third seeded pairs in the tournament, at the championship round.
Youzhny and Zverev, who bettered second seeds Julian Knowle and Simon Aspelin in the match tie-break in the quarter-finals, also edged past Jordan Kerr and Robert Lindstedt, seeded third, 6-2, 4-6, 10-8 in the semi-finals.
Youzhny-Zverev are chasing their second title after triumphing in their last outing at Halle. Incidentally, they had beaten Paes-Dlouhy in the final of the grass-court tournament earlier in the year.
Photograph: Getty Images
