GERMAN OPEN: HOYER POISED FOR THREE IN A ROW

** 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 **

October 4, 1997 (NEW SHUTTLENWS) - Denmark's Poul-Erik Hoyer-Larsen is set to take his third consecutive major international badminton title tomorrow at the German Open championships when he meets his younger teammate Peter Gade Christensen in the men's singles final at Saarbruckenhalle in Saarbrucken, Germany.

Hoyer, the tourney's top seed in men's singles, qualified for tomorrow's championship match with an untroubled and masterful 15-5 and 15-3 victory over the Dutch player Jeroen van Dijk, the fourth seed.

Gade booked his place in the men's singles final with his 15-9, 15-6 upset win over world champion Peter Rasmussen, another of Denmark's badminton aces. Rasmussen was seeded second in the tournament, while Gade is the third seed.

Hoyer has won his last two international badminton tournaments - the three-star Russian Open in Moscow and the five-star U.S. Open in the southern California city of Orange. Previous to these two championships, Hoyer had been stuck in a year-long title drought after he had won a gold medal at the Atlanta Olympic Games in August, 1996.

At the U.S. Open, Hoyer and Gade also met in the finals, with Hoyer coming out the winner. However, he was extended by the younger player to three games, 15-6, 7-15 and 15-6. Hoyer's skills and experience puts him as the favorite over Gade in tomorrow's final, but the young Dane, winner over Hoyer in the Taipei Open finals in January, is expected to give the Olympic champion a stiff fight.

In the mixed doubles championship match played this afternoon, Jens Eriksen and Marlene Thomsen beat Michael Sogaard and Rikke Olsen in an all-Denmark three-set contest. The two Danish pairs swapped wins in the first two games with the Eriksen-Thomsen duo taking the first 15-11 and the Sogaard-Olsen combination claiming the second 15-12.

Sogaard faded in the decider and the team of Eriksen and Thomsen pulled away to a relatively easy 15-6 win for the championship.

Sogaard lost to Eriksen a second time later in the day in the men's doubles semifinals wheh he and partner Jon Holst-Christensen, the top seeds, were upset by Eriksen and Jesper Larsen, 15-12 and 15-6. Eriksen and Larsen are the fifth seeds.

Eriksen and Larsen will face England's Simon Archer and Chris Hunt in the men's doubles championsip match tomorrow. Archer and Hunt, the fourth seeds, upended the second-seeded Danish pair of Jim Laugesen and Thomas Stavngaard 15-6 and 15-7.

In the women's singles semifinals, top-seed Camilla Martin of Denmark easily beat eighth-seeded Margit Borg of Sweden 11-5 and 11-1, while second-seed Marina Andrievskaya, the Russian player who now competes under the Swedish colors, defeated seventh-seeded Kelly Morgan from Wales 11-1 and 11-9.

In the women's doubles semifinals, the two top-seeded pairs, both from Denmark, won their matches. Helene Kirkegaard and Rikke Olsen, the number one picks, whipped Sweden's Andrievskaya and Borg, seeded seventh, 15-3 and 15-5. The second seeds, Lisbet Stuer-Lauridsen and Marlene Thomsen, trounced the fourth seeds Ann Jorgensen and Majken Vange, also from Denmark, 15-1 and 15-10.

(dsimmons)