Ben Johns/Andrei Daescu are into the finals in their first tournament together, but they sure had to work to make it there.

They defeated No. 6 seeds JW Johnson/CJ Klinger 8-11, 12-10, 11-9 in an 87-minute epic that should comfortably remain in the ‘Match of the Year’ conversation for the rest of 2025.

Johns/Daescu had leads late in all three games. In the first game, they led 8-5 before Johnson/Klinger scored six points unanswered to get on the board first.

But in Games 2 and 3, the top seeds were able to capitalize on leads of 9-5 and 9-6, respectively, and close out both to advance to Championship Sunday.

One of the noteworthy elements of the Johns-Daescu partnership has been the question of who should take what side. Both players almost exclusively play the left side with other partners, so Daescu shifted over to the right for a vast majority of rallies on Saturday.

“It was obviously a different gameplan for me this week, but you’ve got to give Ben a lot of props,” Daescu said. “He played singles, he played a full day of mixed doubles yesterday, and he’s played a full day of men’s while taking a lot of court, so I’m just happy that I played my part over there on the right and that we got through the tough moments together.”

No. 2 seeds Federico Staksrud/Christian Alshon await in the final.