U.S. OPEN: HOYER, GADE GAIN FINALS

** This NEW SHUTTLENWS REPORT is presented by badminton world champions YANG YANG (1987 and 1989) and ZHAO JIAN HUA (1991) and by YANG YANG BADMINTON PRODUCTS **

September 13, 1997 (NEW SHUTTLENWS) - Poul-Erik Hoyer-Larsen of Denmark, the 1996 Olympic badminton men's singles champion, scraped past a determined Luo Yigang from China in a three-game semifinal match yesterday at the U.S. Open championships in the southern California city of Orange. With his victory, the Danish ace, second-seeded in tis tournament, puts himself in line to win his second straight Open title after a one-year long absence from the winner's stand.

The tenth-seeded Chinese player tested the Olympic champion in the early going, specially in the first game. Hoyer started slowly and fell behind in the match when he dropped a tightly contested opening set 16-17.

The Dane's touch and tactics got into gear in the second game. He beat Luo 15-11 to tie up the match at 1 game apiece. In the decider, Hoyer was in full command as Luo had no counter to the Dane's now in-form play. Hoyer ran away with the third 15-2.

Hoyer will face young teammate Peter Gade Christensen in this afternoon's championship match. The fifth-seeded Gade, already a winner of a top-rated badminton tournament - the Taipei Masters - this year, defeated Jeroen van Dijk of the Netherlands, the upset-minded thirteenth pick, 15-9 and 15-8 in his half of the semifinals yesterday.

In the women's singles, top seed Camilla Martin of Denmark and second seed Dai Yun of China will contest today's final.

Martin came into yesterday's semifinals against Han Jingna of China grimly determined to avenge her disappointing round-of-16 loss to Han at the world championships in May. She did just that, demolishing the third-seeded Han 11-3 and 11-3.

The left-handed Dai Yun had a tougher match with Marina Andrievskaya, the fourth-seeded Russian-Swede. Andrievskaya played Dai tough, particularly in the second game when she extended Dai into a three-point setting or tiebreak at 9-all. The match though went to the Chinese player 11-7 and 12-9.

In mixed doubles, Koreans Kim Dong Moon and Ra Kyung Min, the fifth seeds, upset the top-seeded English pair of veteran Chris Hunt and rookie Donna Kellogg. Kim, one of the 1996 Olympic mixed doubles gold medalist, and Ra, an Olympic silver medalist, took advantage of Kellogg's inexperience to defeat Hunt and Kellogg 15-9 and 15-5.

Third-seeds bambang Suprianto and Rosalina Riseu of Indonesia disposed of the unseeded English pair of Simon Archer and Jo Davies 15-10 and 17-14 in the other mixed doubles semifinal.

In men's doubles, Kim Dong Moon qualified for a second U.S. Open championship match this year when he and partner Ha Tae Kwon, the eighth seeds and upset winners over the top-seeded pair on Thursday, eliminated Simon Archer and Chris Hunt 15-8 and 15-7. The English duo were the sixth seeds.

China's Liu Yong and Zhang Wei, the fifth-seeds, battled with Indonesians Victo Wibowo and Tony Gunawan in the other men's doubles semifinal. Liu and Zhang dropped the opening game to the seventh-seeded Indonesians 11-15, but then recovered to win the second and third sets 15-11 and 15-10.

In the women's doubles semifinals, top-seeds Qin Yiyuan and Tang Yongshu of China easily defeated the third-seeded Danish team of Majken Vange and Ann Jorgensen 15-8 and 15-4. Second-seeds Yoshiko Iwata and Haruko Matsuda of Japan beat fourth seeds Jo Davies and Nicola Beck of England 15-4 and 15-12.

(tkerrins/aplayer/mgrossman)