Third seed Bao Chunlai of Hunan eased past Fujian's Chen Hong with a straight 15-9, 15-12win in the men's singles semifinal here on Friday, gaining a chance to revenge his long-time losing run against Lin Dan from Chinese Army in the final at the Chinese Tenth National Games.

Earlier, top seed Lin gave himself a wonderful present for his 22nd birthday by entering the men's singles final after seeing off Jiangsu's rising star Chen Jin 2-0 in the other semifinal.

Chen Hong, world number seven, fought hard in the first set while Bao, four years younger than his teammate in the national team, started to exert control when leading 10-8. Chen, exhausted due to playing more matches in the team event, took only one point back before Bao had 5 in a row and won by 15-9.

Second-seeded Chen, appearing to be frustrated after making more errors in the second set, trailed by 1-7 before Bao finally took the second set 15-12.

Bao, world number three, will clash with Dan again. The top twomen's singles shuttlers in China have met eight times in the international events since 2003, with Lin wining seven of them, including the recently-concluded China Masters final.