"As expected, Ahn Se-young is overwhelmed!" He couldn't be Korea's opponent again. A complete victory over Korea and Japan in the "greatest match ever." "Beat Okuhara and aim to win."

*This content was translated by AI.

"World No. 1" Ahn Se-young (24, Samsung Life Insurance) succeeded in advancing to the round of 16 with a complete victory in the match between Korea and Japan.

On the 14th (Korea time), Ahn defeated Japanese badminton ace Nozomi Okuhara (21-17, 21-9) in the round of 32 at the Indian Open (Super 750) of the 2026 Badminton Federation (BWF) at the Indira Gandhi Sports Complex in New Delhi, India.

With this, Ahn Se-young, who achieved the most wins in a single season (11 wins), the highest winning percentage (94.8%, 73 wins, 4 losses), and accumulated prize money of $1 million ($13,175) last year, started a strong start to her second consecutive victory.

Ahn Se-young, who won the competition in 2025, will try to win two consecutive tournaments and two wins of the season. Earlier, Ahn Se-young won the BWF World Tour Super 1000 Malaysia Open Women's Singles Final held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on the 11th, defeating world No. 2 Wang Zhiyi (21-15, 24-22).

On this day, Ahn Se-young showed high concentration against Okuhara in the first game. a 16-17 deficit. After blocking Okuhara's attack, Ahn Se-young succeeded in gaining the upper hand by first stepping on the 21-point mark.

Okuhara, who gave up one game unfortunately, actually collapsed in two games. Ahn Se-young took a 10-3 lead with an onslaught from the beginning. In the end, Ahn Se-young, who took a big lead of 17-8, gave up a point, but scored four consecutive points and took the game to victory.

Ahn will now have a match against world No. 38 Huang Yuxun of Taiwan in the round of 16 to advance to the quarterfinals. Hwang Yu-shun came from behind to win 2-1 against Kim Ga-eun, Ahn Se-young's team and national team senior, in the round of 32.

The match luck for this tournament is also very good. Okuhara, who faced on this day, was actually an opponent he had already met in the round of 16 at the Malaysian Open on the 8th. At that time, Ahn Se-young won 2-0 completely. In addition, while taking another day off on the 13th, Kim Ga-eun was avoided according to the results of the other 32nd round. On top of that, Japan's Yamaguchi (world No. 3), who is relatively strong against Ahn Se-young, did not participate in the Indian Open at all. The aftermath of the poor condition during the quarterfinals of the last Malaysian Open seems to have continued to affect it. In addition, Wang Zhi, Chen Yufei (world No. 4), and Hanwe (world No. 5) are all placed on the opposite side of Ahn Se-young on the match table, so they will not meet until the final. From Ahn Se-young's point of view, it is certainly a good thing.

Meanwhile, Ahn Se-young rose again as the strongest player by dominating the world badminton scene last year. 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.

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*This content was translated by AI.