(Reporter Kim Jeong-hyeon, Xports News) The world’s strongest Ahn Se-young (Samsung Life Insurance) is now looking at the best badminton queen of all time.
Having already surpassed several Chinese legends, she is now looking at the podium (1st to 3rd place podium), the all-time badminton queen.
Ahn Se-young maintained world number one with 117,270 points in the Badminton World Federation (BWF) world rankings for the fourth week of 2026, which were announced on the 20th.
Ahn Se-young is firmly maintaining her first place position, 13,908 points ahead of second-place Wang Ziyi (China). Ahn Se-young has been ranked number one in the world for a total of 129 weeks. It has recently been ranked #1 for 67 consecutive weeks. He has not come down from No. 1 in the world for over a year.
Ahn Se-young won the BWF World Tour India Open (Super 750) women’s singles final against Wang Ziyi with a 2-0 score held at the Indira Gandhi Sports Complex in New Delhi, India on the 18th.
With this win, Ahn Se-young has won the last six competitions in a row. Following his best season in 2025, Ahn Se-young is showing his absolute top status by winning two competitions with even better performance in the 2026 season.
Winning six competitions in a row is a tie for the most consecutive wins in singles in the 21st century. Hsu Xingfang (China) in 2004-2005, Tai Tzu-ying (Taiwan) and Taida in 2016-2017.
Furthermore, while maintaining the world’s No. 1 ranking for a total of 129 weeks, Ahn Se-young is ranked No. 4 in the world for the most weeks in women’s singles history. The gap with Jiang Ning (China, 145 weeks), the number one player among Chinese players, is only 16 weeks. If the current trend continues, it is highly likely that the company will not fall from first place in the first half of this year.
Jiang Ning is a Chinese badminton legend who won two gold medals in the women’s singles at the 2004 Athens Olympics and the 2008 Beijing Olympics, and is a legend that dominated the late 1990s and 2000s.
Ahn Se-young is increasing her chances of rising to third place in the world by surpassing China’s last pride, Jiang Ning.
Ahn Se-young has already easily defeated Chinese women’s singles legends. She beat all previous Chinese badminton legends, including 2012 London Olympic women’s singles gold medalist Li Xuerui (124 weeks), Wang Yihan (116 weeks), Ye Zhaoying (100 weeks), and Xue Xingfang (89 weeks). There is only one person left, Jiang Ning.
The best female badminton players of all time, 1990s superstar Susi Susanthi (Indonesia, 263 weeks), and Taiwanese legend Tai Tzu-ying (214 weeks), who recently announced her retirement, both ranked first in the world for more than 200 weeks in total. This is the path Ahn Se-young must take forward.
There is still a long way to go for Tai Tzu-ying, but if Ahn Se-young surpasses Jiang Ning, she will go beyond the Chinese badminton world and become one of the three best women’s singles players in world badminton history.
If last year’s momentum is maintained for two more years, Tai Tzu-ying and Susanti’s records will also be within sight.
Photo = Yonhap News / BWF
Reporter Kim Jeong-hyeon [email protected]
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