OLYMPIC CHAMPION HOYER-LARSEN UPSET IN DUTCH OPEN FINALS
by Mike Grossman (from a report filed by YANG YANG Badminton Equipment)

October 6, 1996 (New Shuttlenws) - Olympic men's singles gold medalist Poul-Erik Hoyer-Larsen of Denmark was upset by Sun Jun of China in today's finals of the badminton Dutch Open in s'Hertogenbosch.

In a matchup of netshot artists, the younger and fitter Sun Jun took the measure of the Olympic champion in four 9-point games 5-9, 9-3, 9-3 and 9-5.

(Editor's Note - If the scores seem strange, it is because a new scoring system was being tried at the Dutch Open this year. Normal badminton scoring uses a best-of-3 games format with the first player to score 15 (11 in the case of women's singles) winning a game. In the Dutch Open system this year, matches were played in a best-of-5 games format with the first player to score 9 winning the game.

There was a provision for a tight game to go into overtime or "setting" - if a game is tied at 8-all, the first player to score 8 may "set" the game to a three-point overtime. In this case, the game ends when one of the players scores his eleventh point).

The loss this week is Hoyer-Larsen's second finals loss in a row. At the U.S. Open last week in southern California, he was defeated by Joko Suprianto of Indonesia.

Knowledgeable observers did not make too much of the Olympic champion's two straight finals defeats. The Danish player was playing in only his second tournament after taking a much-needed break from serious training and competition following his gold-medal performance in Atlanta. The Olympic champion is also known for for peaking at the top events like the Olympics and the sport's equivalent of Wimbledon, the All-England championships.

Yao Yan of China took the women's singles crown by easily defeating compatriot Han Jingna 9-2, 9-2 and 9-0.

In another all-China finals, Ge Cheng and Tao Xiaoqiang beat Liu and Zhang in a match that had its thrilling moments 11-8, 9-11, 9-4, 7-9 and 9-3 to clinch the men's doubles top prize.

In women's doubles, Eline Coene and Erica van den Heuvel of the Netherlands upheld the honor of the host nation with their championship victory over Christine Gandrup and Margit Borg of Sweden 9-5, 9-1, 5-9 and 9-2.

In the mixed doubles finals, the tournament-tested pair of Jan-Eric Antonsson and Astrid Crabo from Sweden beat compatriots Peter Axelsson and Catrine Bengtsson 9-0, 9-7 and 9-6.