Ahn Se-young's dignity in 'overwhelming victory' and 'touching' with respect to the loser... "I respect you so much"

*This content was translated by AI.

"World No. 1" Ahn Se-young (24, Samsung Life Insurance) greeted his fans after standing tall at the top of this year's first competition. He also impressed the loser by revealing his dignity by leaving a message full of his sincerity.

Ahn Se-young defeated world No. 2 Wang Zhiyi of China 2-0 (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).

With this victory, Ahn Se-young has won three consecutive Malaysian Open titles following 2024 and 2025. Ahn Se-young won nine consecutive games against the world's second-ranked Wang Zhi, including the victory on the same day in all eight games last year. In his career with Wang Zhi, he has an overwhelming advantage of 17 wins and 4 losses.

"I had a really good time in Kuala Lumpur," Ahn said on her personal social networking service (SNS) after confirming her victory. In addition, he won the Malaysian Open for the third time," he wrote.

"I would like to thank Wang Zhi for always testing my limitations and helping me do my best. "I really respect his fierce sense of play, and I'm looking forward to the (Wang Zui) player and the game in the future," he said, paying respect to the defeated opponent.

At the same time, Ahn Se-young said, "I also thank my fans. From the bottom of my heart, thank you. The cheers of Malaysian fans in the stadium gave me a great boost to continue playing. Without the help of you and my team, it would have been difficult to achieve a valuable result of winning," he said, expressing his gratitude.

Finally, Ahn Se-young said, "I'm starting the year of 2026 in a good mood. I'm looking forward to the upcoming games," he said, promising next.

Ahn Se-young rose to the top again last year by dominating the world badminton scene. In the 2025 season, he won three Super 1,000-grade competitions (Malaysia Open, Jeon Young Open, Indonesia Open), five Super 750-grade competitions (Indian Open, Japanese Open, Chinese Masters, Danish Open, French Open), Super 500 Australian Open, Super 300 Orléan Masters, and won 11 World Tour Finals.

In addition, it matched the record of the most wins (11 wins) in a single season set by Japanese male player Kento Momota in 2019. The record for the most wins in a single female singles player season was nine wins set by Ahn Se-young in 2023, but it has already exceeded. In addition, Ahn Se-young won 73 of 77 games this year, marking a landslide victory rate of 94.8%. This is a record that exceeds the season's highest winning rate (92.75%, 64 wins and 5 losses) set by Lin Dan of China in the men's singles in 2011.

The prize money was also very large. Ahn Se-young added $240,000 (about 340 million won) in prize money by winning the World Tour Finals, surpassing the accumulated prize money of $13,175 (about 1.44 billion won). Ahn Se-young is the first to open the era of $1 million in single season prize money. In the end, Ahn Se-young was selected as the BWF Female Player of the Year for the third consecutive year and the Player of the Year by her colleagues for the second consecutive year.

And it continued its upward trend in the first game in 2026. In the first game, he scored seven consecutive points in 10-11 situations and ran to 17-11. In the end, he won 21-15 and succeeded in gaining the upper hand. Two games were in crisis. Trailing 9-17, it seemed that the game was actually headed for three games. However, after chasing 13-19, he scored nine points to bring the 19-19 match to square one. In the end, he won 24-22 after deuce and roared, enjoying the joy of winning.

After the match, Malaysian media The Star said, "Ahn proved to be the undisputed badminton empress," adding, "With this victory, Ahn deserves to be on par with legendary players. "Tai Zhi Ying (Taiwan) tied the record of three consecutive Malaysian Open losses achieved in 2017-2019."

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*This content was translated by AI.