By Xinhua
Tokyo : World number four Lee Chong Wei of Malaysia and Tine Rasmussen of Denmark won the men’s and women’s singles titles at the Japan Open badminton tournament here Sunday.
Lee, who toppled world number one Lin Dan of China in Saturday’s semi-final, defeated Athens Olympic winner Taufik Hidayat of Indonesia 22-20, 19-21, 21-19 in 65 minutes.
“It’s been my dream to win the Olympics, the world championships, the All England and the Japan Open, so I’m really happy that I won one of the four the first time,” said the 24-year-old Lee.
It was the Malaysian’s third title of the season, following his triumphs at the Indonesian Open and the Philippines Open.
Rasmussen, who upset a clutch of the world’s top eight players on her march to the title, stunned two-time former world champion Xie Xingfang of China 21-15, 21-17 for her biggest career title so far.
“I just feel so happy,” said the Dane. “I knew when I was going to play this match, I would just go onto the court and enjoy myself without thinking win or lose.
“If I lost, I would be happy anyway. So I was pretty relaxed and I could feel that Xie Xingfang was maybe a little nervous and made some mistakes.”
Rasmussen shocked 2006 European champion Xu Huaiwen of Germany, China’s Asian champion Jiang Yanjiao, world number one Zhang Ning and finally Lu Lan on her way to the final.