*This content was translated by AI.
Badminton empress Ahn Se-young (24, Samsung Life Insurance) announced her unwavering dominance by winning the first tournament of the new year. Wang Zhiyi (2nd in the world ranking, China), who was the final opponent, failed to win the championship because he was blocked by Ahn Se-young again.
Ahn Se-young defeated world No. 2 Wang Zhiyi (21-15, 24-22) in the women's singles final of the BWF World Tour Super 1000 Malaysia Open in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on the 11th (Korea time).
As a result, Ahn Se-young achieved her feat of winning three consecutive tournaments following 2024 and 2025. Ahn Se-young, who won all eight games against Wang Zi last year, strengthened her natural enemy relationship by winning nine consecutive games against Wang Zi. His career record was 17 wins and 4 losses.
The Chinese region was in despair. Chinese media 'Sina Sports' said, "Wang Zui was defeated after two intense sets of battles. "I lost unfortunately to the world's No. 1 and failed to win the Malaysian Open," he reported.
In addition, the media said, "Wang Zui had a close race until the middle of the first set, but then collapsed by giving up seven points in a row," adding, "In particular, in the second set, he allowed a 19-19 tie to Ahn Se-young's fierce pursuit even though he led by eight points to 17-9. "I missed three game points and lost 22-24 after a close game of deuce," he said in detail of the painful upset loss process.
Chinese fans' response is cold, so it is close to giving up. Chinese fans told Sina Sports, "It was expected. Ahn Se-young is such a big wall," he said. "Wang Zhi is not just a technical problem when you see a big score reversal. He pointed out that he lacks resilience to overcome pressure. There was also a raw criticism that "the specimen of the mental collapse is Wangzui."
In fact, the game contrasted sharply with Ahn Se-young's steel mentality and Wang Zhi's glass mentality.
Ahn Se-young, who was dragged 1-6 at the beginning of the first game, chased without panicking and turned the tide to 12-11. Ahn Se-young, who gained momentum once, was relentless. After a 17-11 run, he scored back-to-back runs at 19-15, bringing his first game.
The game was decided by two games. Ahn Se-young was left behind by 8-14 and 13-19 due to overlapping mistakes in the middle.
But Ahn didn't give up. Wang Zhi did not miss the shaking gap in consideration of the victory and poured an onslaught to tie the score at 19-19.
In the end, Ahn finished the game in two games. Ahn Se-young, who grabbed a match point 23-22 with Wang Zhi's attack caught in the net in a close deuce match, roared with a victory in the final rally.
Ahn dominated world badminton last year. Starting with the Malaysian Open in the 2025 season, he swept three Super 1000-grade competitions, including the Jeon Young Open and the Indonesian Open, and dominated five Super 750-grade competitions, including the Indian Open and the Japanese Open. On top of that, he lifted the World Tour Finals trophy, a king of kings, building a golden tower of 11 wins in the season. This is tied with the record for the most wins in a single BWF season set by Kento Momota (Japan) in 2019.
The purity of the record is also amazing. Ahn Se-young has won 73 games, allowing only four losses despite 77 games in the past year. The winning rate reached a whopping 94.8%, setting a new record for the highest winning rate in a single BWF season.
He even set a phenomenal prize record. Ahn Se-young has written a new history of surpassing $1 million in single-season prize money for the first time in BWF history. In addition to winning the World Tour Finals, he earned 1,003,175 dollars (about 1.43 billion won) in cumulative prize money. He was then named the BWF Women's Player of the Year for the third consecutive year and the Badminton Empress for the second consecutive year by his colleagues.
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*This content was translated by AI.
