▲ ‘Badminton Talk’ SNS
[스포티비뉴스=박대현 기자] Ahn Se-young (Samsung Life Insurance)’s opponent for the Australian Open final has been confirmed.
With only one win left until his 10th win this season, he will compete for the top spot in the tournament with Putri Kusuma Wardani (Indonesia), who has the upper hand with 3 wins in 3 matches overall.
Wardani, ranked 7th in the world in women’s singles, achieved a come-from-behind victory over Michelle Lee (Canada, 17th in the world) 2-1 (17-21 21-16 21-18) in the women’s singles semifinals of the Badminton World Federation (BWF) World Tour Super 500 Australian Open held in Sydney, Australia on the 22nd.
It was intense from the first game. The two fought back and forth until the maximum score difference was only 3 points before the game point.
Lee won the first game 21-17. In a situation where they were down 12-15, they scored 3 points in a row to balance the score, and then scored 3 points in a row to bring the score back to 18-16.
When they lost a point to Wardani and were chased by 1 point, they scored 3 points again to take the lead by 21 points. Successfully suppressed the steamer.
Wardani launched a counterattack. They flew well in two games, scoring only five points in a row twice with sharp diagonal attacks.
They allowed a fierce chase at the end, and when they were trailing at 19-16, they managed to restore the balance of the game score with consecutive scores.
Game 3 was also tight until the middle. But Wardani’s concentration was even fiercer.
With a slight lead of 13-12, they scored 4 points to secure the victory. In the end, the final was confirmed with a score of 21-14.
Ahn Se-young reached the Australian Open final ahead of Wardani.
They defeated Thailand’s Ratchanok Inthanon (8th place) 2-0 (21-8 21-6) in the semifinals.
Ahn Se-young completely took the lead throughout the game from the beginning.
They started with a lead in both games 1 and 2 with consecutive scores, and then completed a ‘perfect game’ that did not allow them to lead even once. I won a ticket to the finals in 40 minutes.
The highlight was the second game. From the start, they scored 9 consecutive points, pouring ice water on their opponent’s will to chase after them.
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Ahn Se-young is showing off her overwhelming performance throughout the Australian Open.
From the round of 32 to this day, they went all the way to the finals without giving up a single game to their opponent.
Ahn Se-young, the 2022 Australian Open champion, will achieve 10 gold medals this season if she returns to the top after three years.
He participated in a total of 14 international competitions this year, including the Australian Open, and stood on the top step of the podium in 9 of them.
He won three Super 1000 series (Malaysia Open, All England Open, and Indonesia Open), five Super 750 series (India Open, Japan Open, China Open, Denmark Open, and French Open), and the Orleans Masters, a Super 300 tournament.
While there is a strong possibility that he will break the record for most wins in a single season (9 wins) that he set two years ago on the Sydney Court, attention is focused on whether he can tie the all-time record of 11 wins set by Kento Momota (Japan) in 2019.
They have an absolute advantage over Wardani, who they will face in the finals. They met three times and won all of them.
They met for the first time at the Indonesia Masters in January 2023, and after defeating them 2-1, they also won the next two games.
There have been two shutout wins. The most recent meeting was at the Sudirman Cup last May. At this time too, the match was easily dismissed with a score of 2-0 (21-18 21-12) and the relationship of natural enemies continued.
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