Ahn Se-young vs Yamaguchi: Record-Breaking Badminton Bid

Badminton King of Kings ‘Revenge Match’ concluded… The opponent’s record is 16 wins and 15 losses.

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(Hangzhou = Yonhap News) Reporter Oh Myung-eon = Only 4 losses in 70 international competitions.

Ahn Se-young, the star of Korean badminton, is rewriting her golden era this season by recording the highest win rate of 94.4% among female singles players ever.

Of the four losses, excluding the semifinals of the China Open, where he withdrew due to injury concerns, only three games were actually played against opponents.

Ahn Se-young dominates the court with overwhelming skills worthy of being ranked number one in the world, but he also has a natural enemy.

Akane Yamaguchi (28), who is competing in the Badminton World Federation (BWF) World Tour Finals, which opened on the 17th and is currently underway, is one of them.

Ahn Se-young’s record against Yamaguchi is even with 16 wins and 15 losses.

In the third match of the group stage of the World Tour Finals held on the 19th, Ahn Se-young achieved a come-from-behind victory and gained a slight advantage, but as fate would have it, the two players faced each other again as a result of the draw for the semifinals on the 20th, resulting in a ‘revenge match’.

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Yamaguchi, who achieved No. 1 in the world rankings for the first time in 2018 at the age of 21 and is still ranked No. 3 in the world, is considered a particularly unsuitable rival to Ahn Se-young.

He defeated Ahn Se-young 0-2 (18-21 13-21) in the final of the BWF World Tour Super 500 Korea Open held at home this year, recording one of Ahn Se-young’s four losses this season.

The reason Ahn Se-young is having a particularly hard time against Yamaguchi is because the two’s playing styles are similar in the grand scheme of things, but show distinct differences.

Yamaguchi, like Ahn Se-young, is an ‘all-rounder’ who excels in both attack and defense, but is particularly strong in defense.

Despite her small stature of 156cm, she is similar to Ahn Se-young in that she quickly covers a wide court with agile and flexible movements, and especially shakes up her opponents and induces them to make mistakes through continuous rallies.

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Therefore, until last year, when two players competed, the game time would often last well over an hour. During the rally, there were times when the score exceeded 40 to 50 strokes.

However, since Ahn Se-young began pursuing more aggressive play, the two’s recent rallies have become much more concise.

Ahn Se-young, who used to keep her opponents at bay with her ‘iron-walled defense’, is now accumulating points with sharp smashes that attack her opponents as soon as she sees a gap. In response, Yamaguchi has also evolved her style with faster tempo attacks.

The two, whose four matches last year all lasted well over an hour, finished most of their six matches this year in the 40-minute range, and none of them lasted longer than 60 minutes.

The semifinal ‘revenge match’ between Ahn Se-young and Yamaguchi is scheduled for 10:30 a.m. Korean time.

If Ahn Se-young wins this tournament, he will achieve his 11th win of the season, tying the record for most wins in a single season with Japanese men’s singles player Kento Momota.

Attention is being paid to whether Ahn Se-young can get one step closer to overtaking Yamaguchi and writing a new badminton history.

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2025/12/20 07:00 Sent
Sent at 07:00 on December 20, 2025