BADMINTON / U.S. OPEN : Hoyer-Larsen Handles Jun, Wins Men’s Singles

Denmark’s Poul-Erik Hoyer-Larsen took a page from badminton’s genteel past and proved skill and strategy can still prevail over power and speed.

In a game that sometimes resembled entertainment at an afternoon tea party, Hoyer-Larsen easily handled power-hitting Jun Liu of China to win the men’s singles title at the U.S. Open Badminton Championships Sunday in the Bren Center.

Serving low and hitting powder-soft shots that barely cleared the net, Hoyer-Larsen prevailed, 15-7, 15-4, in 32 minutes.

“I think I frustrated him,” said Hoyer-Larsen, who masterfully steered the game away from the fast-faced, slam-bang matches that Jun, seeded second at the tournament, prefers.

“I’ve worked hard on my defense. I pushed him away from the net and I was able to control his shots,” said Hoyer-Larsen, who lost to Jun in the 1990 Swedish Open in their only other meeting.

“You could say the revenge factor was there, too. I desperately needed to beat him,” said Hoyer-Larsen, who also won the men’s singles titles at the 1992 European championships, the Swedish Open and the Finnish Open. He reached the quarterfinals at the Olympics in Barcelona.

Hoyer-Larsen, 27, took $2,275 from the $35,000 pot, put up by the U.S. Badminton Assn. and Yonex. It’s his first U.S. Open title.

“He was the better player today,” said Jun, 23.

Guy Chadwick, coach of Arizona State’s badminton team, called the match a “classic confrontation of Asian speed and power against European skill and strategy.”

Chadwick, who was tracking the statistics for television, said he was surprised the game lasted only about a half hour and the longest rally was only 28 shots. “Strategy beat power. Liu could not get his attacking game going while Hoyer-Larsen played the four corners well and he was effective when he came to the net,” Chadwick said.

In the women’s singles final, power prevailed.

The day after they won the women’s doubles title, Lim Xiao Qing defeated doubles partner Christine Magnusson, 11-2, 11-2, in less than 30 minutes.

Lim, who became a Swedish citizen in April, mixed shots well, yielding the two points in each set on unforced errors.

Magnusson, who advanced to the final after a hard-fought semifinal game Saturday against Pernille Nedergaard, appeared spent and sluggish.

Lim, seeded first, sprinted to a 9-0 lead. “I knew I’d win, I just didn’t know what the score would be,” said Lim, 25, who is 4-0 against her doubles partner.

Top-seeded Lim and Magnusson defeated second-seeded Kimiko Jinnai and Hisako Mori of Japan, 15-4, 15-9, in a late final Saturday and received $2,100. In the mixed doubles final, Thomas Lund and Pernille Dupont of Denmark downed Jan-Eric Antonsson and Lotte Olsen of Sweden, 15-5, 15-10, to win $1,400.

Cheah Soon Kit and Soo Beng Kiang of Malaysia outplayed Thomas Lund and Jens Olsson of Denmark, 15-9, 15-11, to win the men’s doubles title and $2,450.

More than 140 players from 20 countries participated in the five-day tournament.

Olympians Andy Chong and Erika von Heiland reached the Round of 16 in the men’s and women’s singles, respectively, while Ben Lee and Tom Reidy, ranked 32nd in the world and the United States’ top men’s doubles team, also failed to reached the quarterfinals.