FL MORRIS / FMORRIS@STARBULLETIN.COM Chris Lam and Taylor Bedillion celebrated last night after beating Malino Oda and Johnny Rosetti in the semifinals of the Kailua Night Doubles at Kailua Racquet Club.

Bedillion and Lam
reach Kailua final

For two nights, the local boy and the Jamaican rolled to wins at the Kailua Racquet Club Men's Night Doubles tournament.

Last night, it took a pair of giant killers to silence their run. Taylor Bedillion and Chris Lam, former teammates at Santa Clara, used sound, steady play to overwhelm Malino Oda and Johnny Rosetti 6-3, 6-1 in semifinal action.

Bedillion and Lam will meet the second-seeded duo of Michael Bruggemann and Erich Chen, who defeated Jim Somerville and Wei Yu Su 3-6, 6-3, 6-3.

Bedillion and Lam may enter tomorrow's title match, set for 7 p.m., with a little more steam after making relatively quick work of Oda and Rosetti.

"We came out to play basic, straight up. We do everything solid," said Lam, of Honolulu. "We let them react."

Rosetti, a Jamaican who travels among New York, Oahu and the Big Island much of the year, was a last-minute replacement to play with Oda. Despite disparate styles, the duo won their first two matches. Their lack of familiarity with each other, however, caught up with them.

"It was hard to get into rhythm, but we played well," said Oda, who lost four doubles partners in the space of three weeks. Two from Japan were among the top 500 doubles players in the world. Another, Ryan Ideta, couldn't squeeze the Kailua Night Doubles into his busy schedule.

Still, Oda gave the former Broncos their due.

"They're good. You could tell they'd played together before," he said.

The turning point came with Bedillion and Lam ahead 4-3 in the opening set.

"We got a break on Malino's serve, and I held my serve," Lam said.

Rosetti will play in a Futures tourney in Texas soon with his regular partner. The wiry, dreadlocked right-hander hammered a number of serves.

"We just didn't find it in the second set, but we tried," said Rosetti, who plays for Jamaica's Davis Cup team. Rosetti, 22, travels to the islands to visit his girlfriend, who lives on the Big Island.

"I was just here to see her, and Oda needed a partner," he said. "I hope I can come back again and play with him."

Bedillion and Lam ousted defending champions and No. 1 seeds Ikaika Jobe and Bradley Lum-Tucker in the quarterfinals. The two became friends as freshmen at Santa Clara, where both developed a devotion to the movie "Zoolander."

Lam transferred to UCLA after a year, but the two remained friends. Bedillion made the extra effort for this tourney, arriving a week early.

"We did a lot of hitting with Chris' coach," said Bedillion, who plans to play in Northern California's "money" tournaments while putting his marketing degree to work.

Lam intends to play on the pro circuit back on the mainland soon. A win in tomorrow's final would be worth $2,400.

"Yeah, that's an incentive. We both have trips to pay for," he said.

In the late semifinal, Bruggemann and Chen rallied to outlast the No. 6-seeded duo in a classic battle. Chen's big serve caused problems, but Su, a former BYU-Hawaii standout, delivered a wicked lefty serve, as well.

The third set was tied at 4-all with the 41-year-old Somerville serving when Bruggemann and Chen took the lead for good. The match took 1 hour, 55 minutes to complete.