The pairings of Ben Johns/Gabe Tardio and Christian Alshon/Andrei Daescu are through to the men’s doubles final after straight-game victories Saturday evening.

Waters/Johns kicked off semifinal action with an 11-1, 11-2 thrashing of No. 10 seeds Eric Oncins/Matt Wright.

It was a truly dominant display from the top seeds, with Tardio excelling with his off-the-bounce speedups from the right side.

Even though those attacks seem so calculated, the 19-year-old says that he usually doesn’t think about where to attack in the heat of the moment.

“Most of the time I don’t even know what I’m doing. I just look for kind of a floaty dink so I can put pace on it and a little bit of spin, but that’s about it,” he explained. “I just go with my instincts.”

In the second semifinal, Alshon/Daescu overcame a slow start to defeat No. 2 seeds Federico Staksrud/Hayden Patriquin.

After facing game point at 3-10 in Game 1, the No. 3 seeds reeled off nine points on a single serve to gain the upper hand going into the second, where they continued to dominate.

Daescu applauded Alshon for making the change to slow things down when they were trailing early on.

“We weren’t playing our best and [Staksrud and Patriquin] were definitely connecting really well to start, and we just knew we had to stop the momentum and try to create a little bit of our own. Christian made a great tactical call there, and we started putting some points together,” he noted. “Pickleball is a game of runs, and we made a big run just like they did.”

Sunday will mark the fourth meeting between these two teams. Alshon/Daescu won their first matchup in the final of the Mesa Cup in a five-game thriller, but Johns/Tardio have won the two most recent encounters in Atlanta and San Clemente.

Oncins/Wright will take on Staksrud/Patriquin in the bronze medal match, also on Sunday.