KOREA OPEN 2014 Finals – Boe/Mogensen win again ‘at home’

Boe/Mogensen prevented the Korea Open from becoming the 4^th Superseries tournament to experience a Chinese title sweep, taking their second men’s doubles title in Seoul.

By Don Hearn, Badzine Correspondent live in Seoul.  Photos: Yves Lacroix for Badmintonphoto (live)

“We feel at home here,” said Mathias Boe after he and Carsten Mogensen (pictured) won their second Korea Open title this afternoon.  “The stadium is good for us; the shuttles are a little bit heavy.

“It’s the home of Lee Yong Dae so it’s very difficult to win here but we’ve done it before and this is our fourth final so we are very happy to be here.”

Mathias Boe and Carsten Mogensen began their Superseries title-winning ways here in Seoul, in this very gymnasium back in 2009, when they beat Jung Jae Sung and Lee Yong Dae on the eve of the Koreans first becoming world #1.

Today, they found their form again and not only beat another Olympic champion, Fu Haifeng, but also denied China a sweep in the Korea Open.  Hong Wei (pictured), for his part, was forced to continue waiting for his own first Superseries title.

“We are delighted,” said Carsten Mogensen.  “We won here in 2009 and lost in the finals twice since so we were hoping for a better tournament this year and we couldn’t hope for a better outcome.”

“I think we moved our feet better,” said Boe.  “We blocked a lot of shuttles.  We knew they have a good attack, they have a lot of power, but sometimes they get a little confused when they don’t get any speed and we tried to take advantage of that.”

“We also had good defence,” added Mogensen.  “We can’t win by just blocking all the shuttles so we also had to play the baseline and we defended their smashes very well, especially Fu Haifeng’s, which is so hard.”

“Now we will go back and celebrate with a good dinner,” said Boe.  “It’s a little difficult playing on Sunday and then playing again in a different country a few days later, with a 6.5-hour flight, but we will do our utmost and winning here will give us a lot of confidence so we hope for another good result in Malaysia.

“Of course it’s cold here in Seoul but the people here are really friendly and the hotel is really good and they’ve moved the practice hall to downstairs where there is heat on.  We really feel at home.  The food is good and the people take really good care of us.”

Of their celebration following their final, Boe said, “Just before the final we talked about doing ‘Gangnam Style’ if we won and then when we were leading 20-12 in the second game, we talked again and decided to do it because it has made Korea very famous in the rest of the world and especially in Denmark.”

China, of course, had ruled the day up until the men’s doubles final.  Mixed doubles was a battle between the two pairs who have held the Korea Open title for the four years running between them.  Xu Chen and Ma Jin were unable to take their second title and instead, allowed Zhao Yunlei to claim her 5^th Korea Open crown in five straight outings.

Women’s singles came the closest to producing a deciding game.  World Champion Ratchanok Intanon (pictured) made a valiant effort at the end of the second game, fighting back from 12-17 down but after tying at 19-all, she was unable to get a peek past Wang Yihan to force a third and deciding game.

Final results
WD: Bao Yixin / Tang Jinhua (CHN) [5] beat Luo Ying / Luo Yu (CHN)  21-17, 21-15
MS: Chen Long (CHN) [2] beat Lee Chong Wei (MAS) [1]  21-14, 21-15
XD: Zhang Nan / Zhao Yunlei (CHN) [1] beat Xu Chen / Ma Jin (CHN) [2]  21-18, 21-18
WS: Wang Yihan (CHN) [3] beat Ratchanok Intanon (THA) [2]  21-13, 21-19
MD: Mathias Boe / Carsten Mogensen (DEN) [1] beat Fu Haifeng / Hong Wei (CHN) 21-12, 21-17

Click here for complete results