KAILUA — Fittingly, the winner of tomorrow's 36th Blue Moon Men's Night Doubles will be a first-time champion. The tennis players in the final win much more than once in a blue moon, but neither team has won at the state's most popular tournament, at Kailua Racquet Club.

Third-seeded Minh Le and Wei-Yu Su ousted second-seeded former state high school champions Malino Oda and Ryan Ideta — who was going for a record seventh Night Doubles title — 6-3, 7-5, in last night's late semifinal.

Earlier, former Hawai'i Pacific All-Americans Mikael Maatta and Jan Axel Tribler — now financial advisors for John Hancock — reached their first final. The fifth seeds stopped sixth-seeded Bradley Lum-Tucker and Jesse Paer, 7-6 (7-3), 7-5, in the midst of three rain interruptions.

Maatta, 27, from Sweden, and Tribler, 25, from Denmark, won the Hawai'i Sectionals in May to earn a slot in the Honolulu Futures later this year. Before that, they hadn't played together seriously since 2002 at HPU.

For them to win tomorrow's $2,400 prize, they will have to find their by Le and Su. The two lefties, who were down 1-5 in their opening set Wednesday, won the first four games against Oda and Ideta and rallied from a 1-3 deficit in the second set.

Oda, 24, and Ideta, 29, both played for Lahainaluna and live in Hilo now.

Su, 30, was born in Taipei and came here 11 years ago to play for Brigham Young-Hawai'i, where he is now an assistant coach. He was an All-American, graduated in 1999 while he was the state's top-ranked player, and earned a world ranking of 898.

Le, 29 was born in Vietnam, raised in Sacramento and played for Cal before moving to Japan to study and play professionally. He still has world rankings in singles (915) and doubles (817).

The two met seven years ago at the Waikoloa Challenger, but hadn't seen each other since. A friend convinced Le to fly over from Japan to play this tournament and he and Su practiced together all of one day.

"Guess that made up for the seven years we didn't see each other," Le joked.

The lefties' talent is exceptional. As good, and tenacious, as Oda and Ideta are, they simply couldn't keep up.

"They make you play more shots. If you're not real solid with your shot, like for me I didn't have a good first serve, it will come back," Le said. "But for us, we kind of knew ... they are a good team but I felt we were a little stronger."

Tribler and Maatta broke first in each set against Paer and Lum-Tucker. Both times, Tribler was broken soon after to keep it close. Ultimately, the decisive points came in the final moments.

Maatta and Tribler came out quick after a rain delay at 5-6 in the first set, winning Maatta's serve to force the tiebreaker and taking control of that by winning the first four points. They were two points from winning the match with Paer serving at 4-5 in the second set.

He held on and the teams played their most compelling tennis of the somewhat ragged match in the next game.

Tribler made two great volleys and was rewarded with an overhead he buried to go up 30-15 on his serve. Lum-Tucker countered with a scorching volley. Maatta matched that to get Tribler to game point, but Lum-Tucker drilled a backhand down the line after another long rally.

Tribler finally went up 6-5 with a big serve and a miss by Paer, whose frustration came to a head in the next game. He let one ball go by that landed in and missed a volley to give Tribler and Maatta match point. Lum-Tucker saved the first with his serve, but another Tribler shot that was let go found the court and Maatta ended it with yet another radical angle on a return.

"We did not want to go to a tiebreaker again," Tribler said.

"Tiebreaker is a coin toss every time," Maatta added. "Seven points, anything can happen."

Reach Ann Miller at amiller@honoluluadvertiser.com.