Top-seeded South African Stephen Coppinger will take on New Zealand's No2 seed Martin Knight in the final of the Hibiscus Gardens Open in Brisbane after contrasting semi-final wins in the PSA World Tour Challenger 15 squash event at Hibiscus Gardens Squash Centre in Upper Mount Gravatt.
Coppinger looked in great touch as he saw off Malaysian Kamran Khan 11-5, 11-3, 11-5 while Knight had to fight all the way before outlasting veteran South Australian Mike Corren 8-11, 14-12, 11-8, 11-5 to reach his seventh Tour final.
Corren, who won the ACT Open in Canberra last week, was left ruing his lost opportunities when he had a number of chances to go 2/0 up.
"I had some game balls in the second game but he saved them, then won the game himself - that was the difference," Corren said.
"I've got no excuses - he played well and stuck to his game, while I got stuck playing at one pace and couldn't get forward.
"I think if I could have got that second game and gone two-love up it would have been a different result.
"But he stayed on one level and my game dipped in the third and fourth games."
Earlier, Coppinger had taken advantage of some weariness from the Malaysian to close out the first semi-final.
Khan won a marathon quarter-final against Melbourne's Rex Hedrick on Friday night and struggled to recover in time for his semi-final.
Coppinger, the world number 39 from Cape Town who is now celebrating his 12th Tour final appearance, has been in superb form over the last 12 months and won the Finnish Open in February.
He and Knight have played once before, at the Hong Kong Open in 2009, the South African winning in four games.
RESULTS: PSA Challenger 15 Hibiscus Gardens Open, Upper Mount Gravatt, Brisbane, Australia
Semi-finals:
[1] Stephen Coppinger (RSA) bt [3] Kamran Khan (MAS) 11-5, 11-3, 11-5 (39m)
[2] Martin Knight (NZL) bt [4] Mike Corren (AUS) 8-11, 14-12, 11-8, 11-5 (63m)