Na­tion­al play­ers con­tin­ue to ad­vance in the dou­bles cat­e­gories in the T&T Open In­ter­na­tion­al Bad­minton tour­na­ment late Fri­day to progress to the semi­fi­nals of the men’s, women’s and mixed dou­bles at the Na­tion­al Rac­quet Cen­tre in Tacarigua.

In the mixed dou­bles, Sameer Ali and Ja­ni­ah Boodoos­ingh were made to work hard for their win over the Bar­ba­dos pair of David Forde and Mony­a­ta Riv­iera. They need­ed three sets to se­cure their pas­sage to the se­mi-fi­nal, as they won the first set 21-19, but the Bar­ba­di­ans lev­elled the game by win­ning the sec­ond set 21-18. The third set was a thriller as they went to the wire be­fore the Ali-Boodoos­ingh duo pre­vailed 23-21 to ad­vance to Sat­ur­day evening’s semi­fi­nal.

In the men’s dou­bles, the pair Vishal Ram­sub­hag and Ryan Sinanan de­feat­ed com­pa­tri­ots Che Pae­dro and Doniv Pooran 21-8, 21-1 for a rel­a­tive­ly easy pas­sage to the semi­fi­nal. They will be joined in the semi­fi­nal stage by Gabriel Boodram and Jor­dan Ram­sumair who got past Aaisan Ram­cha­ran and Ethan Ram­cha­ran, 21-19, 21-19, in a hard-fought bat­tle as both Trinida­di­an pairs fought for a semi­fi­nal place. Aaiden and Ethan Ram­cha­ran, de­spite their ef­forts can on­ly look on and sup­port their com­pa­tri­ots in the semi­fi­nals.

Cheyenne Bho­la and Shiv­ani-Koonj-Be­har­ry edged past Nata­nia Mol­lah and Des­tiny Rat­tan 21-18, 24-22 as Mol­lah and Rat­tan tried their best to lev­el the game in the sec­ond set.

In the ear­ly game yes­ter­day, the Cheyenne-Bho­la com­bi­na­tion found that Cana­di­ans Jes­lyn Chow and Eliana Zhang were too much as they fell to the North Amer­i­cans 21-2, 21-1 to bow out at the semi­fi­nal stage.

The semi­fi­nals con­tin­ued late yes­ter­day with the fi­nals of all the di­vi­sions slat­ed to take place this evening.