Badminton Kings of Kings: Ahn, Kim & Seo Dominate with 11th Season Win

[서울=뉴시스] Reporter Ha Geun-su = Badminton women’s singles Ahn Se-young (Samsung Life Insurance), men’s doubles Kim Won-ho and Seo Seung-jae (Samsung Life Insurance), and women’s doubles Baek Ha-na and Lee So-hee (Incheon International Airport) won the Badminton King of Kings Tournament, announcing the advent of the golden age of Korean badminton.

World No. 1 Ahn Se-young won the championship with a 2-1 (21-13 18-21 21-10) victory in the women’s singles final of the 2025 Badminton World Federation (BWF) World Tour Finals against world No. 2 Wang Zhiyi (China) held at the Olympic Sports Center in Hangzhou, China on the 21st.

As a result, Ahn Se-young won ▲Malaysia Open (Super 1000) ▲India Open (Super 750) ▲Orléans Masters (Super 300) ▲All England Open ▲Indonesia Open (Super 1000) ▲Japan Open ▲China Masters ▲Denmark Open ▲French Open (Super 750) ▲Australian Open (Super 500) followed by the World Tour Finals, recording 11 wins this year.

Ahn Se-young, who broke the ‘BWF single season women’s singles most wins (9 wins)’ that she set two years ago with ’11 wins’, also tied the record for ‘BWF single season most wins (11)’ achieved by Kento Momota (Japan) in 2019.

In addition, they recorded 73 wins in 77 games played this year, recording a win rate of 94.8%, the ‘highest win rate in BWF single season.’

Adding the winning prize of $240,000 (approximately 336 million won), he became the first player to exceed the ‘BWF single season cumulative prize money of $1 million’ with a cumulative prize money of $1,003,175 (approximately 1,486 million won) this year.

It is also important to note that she was selected as ‘BWF Female Athlete of the Year’ for three consecutive years and ‘Athletes’ Player of the Year’ for two consecutive years before the opening of the competition.

As expected of two players competing to be the best in the world, the game was intense from the first game.

Wang Ziyi ran away first with 8-4, but Ahn Se-young came back to 9-8 and went to the interval with 11-8.

The strategy of using the court widely and reducing the opponent’s stamina worked well.

The points earned by reading the challenge in a 13-10 situation and the smash to the body in a 16-11 situation were also important.

Ahn Se-young started to solidify and took the victory by winning 1 game by 8 points.

At the beginning of the second game, Ahn Se-young was pulled first to 4-8, but calmly narrowed the score gap.

Ahn Se-young succeeded in coming back to 11-10 and went to the interval first again.

However, the second game was Wang Ziyi’s responsibility.

Wang Zhiyi scored in a row to take the lead back to 15-14, and continued the momentum, taking the lead to 2 games by 3 points.

Ahn Se-young, who started game 3 with the first goal, pulled the reins.

Ahn Se-young defeated Wang Ziyi with a diagonal attack in a 7-5 situation, scoring 11 points first.

Ahn Se-young, who scored 7 points in a row to get up to 15-6, started to solidify.

In the end, Ahn Se-young won three games with a score of 21-10, and defeated Wang Ziyi with a score of 2-1 to become the King of Kings champion.

The world No. 1 pair of Kim Won-ho and Seo Seung-jae won the men’s doubles final with a 2-0 (21-18 21-14) win over the world No. 5 pair Liang Weikeng and Wang Chang (China).

Kim Won-ho and Seo Seung-jae won ▲Malaysia Open ▲German Open (Super 300) ▲All England Open (Super 1000) ▲Indonesia Open ▲Japan Open ▲World Individual Badminton Championships ▲China Masters ▲Korea Open (Super 500) ▲French Open ▲Following the Japan Masters (Super 500), he has achieved 11 wins this season.

In particular, Seo Seung-jae set a new record for the most wins by an individual in a season with 12 wins, including winning the Thailand Masters (Super 300) with Jin Yong (Yonex).

Won-ho Kim and Seung-jae Seo, who reunited for the first time in January 2018, dominated numerous international stages this year and stood tall as the strongest pair in men’s doubles.

On the same day, Baek Ha-na and Lee So-hee, ranked 7th in the world, also reached the top by defeating the pair of world 5th-ranked Yuki Fukushima and Mayu Matsumoto (Japan) 2-0 (21-17 21-10) in the women’s doubles final.

As a result, Baek Hana and Lee Sohee successfully defended their titles by dominating the World Tour Finals this year as well as last year.

This year, the two players were in a slump, winning only one tournament, the Denmark Open, but they showed off their health by lifting the trophy at the World Tour Finals, the last tournament of the season.

The Korean badminton team, which finished the World Tour Finals, will return to Korea through Incheon International Airport on the 22nd.

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