The 2019 Indian Open final on Sunday will be contested between two players who have never previously won a ranking event.
Lyu Haotian and Matthew Selt will battle over the best of nine frames in Kochi for the £50,000 top prize.
The latter ended the hopes of defending champion John Higgins in the last four with a 4-2 victory over the Scot.
Lyu matched that scoreline as he came from 2-0 down to overcome former German Masters winner Anthony Hamilton in the second semi-final clash.
The 21 year-old is bidding to become only the third competitor from China to claim a ranking event crown.
Despite the huge boom experienced in the populous Asian country over the last 15 years, esteemed countrymen Ding Junhui and Liang Wenbo remain the only two cueists from China to land a title at this level.
Lyu will be hoping to go one better than Xiao Guodong, Yan Bingtao, and Cao Yupeng, who have each reached a title decider only to ultimately come up short.
The former world under-21 champion has long been heralded as a potential star in the making but has so far failed to make the leap into the higher echelons of the sport.
However, recent signs have been encouraging and, added to his earlier run to the China Championship semi-finals this season, Lyu is now guaranteed a berth in the top 32 of the world rankings for the first time in his career.
In the Indian Open final, Lyu will face an opponent in Selt who had never previously gone beyond the last eight of a ranking event in 17 years as a professional.
The English 33 year-old recorded a brace of tight 4-3 victories on Saturday before breaks of 103, 84, and 50 helped him past four-time world champion Higgins.
Selt and Lyu have never met each other before on the Main Tour so there’s nothing to look at from past performances.
Without doubt, this will be new territory for the pair and the result will be just as much about who can handle the occasion as it will be about the standard that they can produce.
It isn’t immensely surprising to see a couple of the lower ranked players facing off for glory in this year’s Indian Open final.
The original line-up feature a depleted field with several marquee names taking the opportunity to rest up with greater challenges and more prestigious prizes ahead.
A short format also proved to be somewhat of a leveller as the likes of Shaun Murphy, Stuart Bingham, and Jack Lisowski bowed out in the early rounds.
But Lyu and Selt have reached this latterly stage on merit and one of the duo is just a single victory away from etching his name onto the silverware and into the history books.
