The South Korean men's badminton doubles pair of Lee Yong-dae and Ko Sung-hyun reached the final at the Korea Open tournament with a straight-set victory Saturday.

Lee and Ko, seeded sixth, took down the No. 2 seed Koo Kien Keat and Tan Boon Heong of Malaysia, 21-17, 21-11. In the seesawing first set, the South Koreans took a 16-15 lead and ended the set on a 5-2 run, thanks to Lee's smash winners.

Lee and Ko blew out the Malaysians in the second set, starting the set 10-1 and closing out the match with three consecutive points.

The South Koreans will take on the winner of the other semifinal match later Saturday between the No. 1 seed Mathias Boe and Carsten Mogensen of Denmark and Hong Wei and Shen Ye of China.

The Korea Open is the world's most lucrative badminton tournament this year with $1 million in total prize money. It is one of five Super Series Premier events run by the Badminton World Federation (BWF), along with the Indonesia Open, the Denmark Open, All England Open and the China Open.

Last year, South Korea was shut out of titles, with China claiming four out of five events. Lee and Ko have won their last three international events and entered this year's Korea Open as the best title hope for the host country.

In the women's doubles, South Korea's Jung Kyung-eun and Kim Ha-na fell to the top seeded pair from China, Yu Yang and Wang Xiaoli, 21-16, 21-11.

This was a rematch of the two teams' controversial contest at the London Olympics. They were among four women's doubles pairs to be booted from the Olympics after attempting to purposely drop their round-robin matches to secure a favorable draw in the knockout stage.

Jung and Kim briefly took a 13-12 lead in the opening set, but the Chinese closed it out on a 9-3 run, thanks to an array of smashes.

Then in the second set, the South Koreans went up 3-1 early, but then the Chinese stormed back to take a 7-3 lead. The advantage quickly swelled to 16-6 before Yu and Wang walked off with an easy win.

Yu and Yang will face their compatriots, Ma Jin and Tang Jinhua, in Sunday's final. Ma and Tang upset the second-seeded Christinna Pedersen and Kamilla Rytter Juhl of Denmark 21-19, 19-21, 21-11 in the semis. (Yonhap News)