Ahn Se-young: Indian Open Semifinals – Faces Inthanon

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‘Shuttlecock Empress’ Ahn Se-young (24, Samsung Life Insurance) advanced to the semifinals of the Badminton World Federation (BWF) India Open (Super 750). It took only 37 minutes to win the quarterfinals.

Ahn Se-young (World No. 1) defeated Indonesia’s Putri Kusuma Wardani (No. 6) 2-0 (21-16, 21-8) in the women’s singles quarterfinals of the tournament held at the Indira Gandhi Sports Complex in New Delhi, India, on the 16th (Korean time).

With the win on this day, Ahn Se-young had a whopping 28 consecutive wins since last year’s Denmark Open, and continued her eight-game winning streak against Wardani. The semifinal opponent is Thailand’s Ratchanok Inthanon (8th place). On the other side, in the semifinals, Wang Zhiyi (2nd place) and Chen Yufei (4th place, both of China) compete to advance to the finals.

Ahn Se-young was shaken at the beginning of the first game, giving up five points in succession, but immediately regained concentration and tied the score at 7-7. Then, at 11-11, they started to overwhelm the opponent by scoring 3 points and took the first game 21-16.

Ahn Se-young, who gained momentum after understanding her opponent, completely overwhelmed her opponent in the second game. With an early 5-4 lead, they took the lead by scoring 4 consecutive points. Afterwards, due to the opponent’s mistakes, they succeeded in scoring 7 consecutive points, ending the game in 37 minutes.

Previously, in the round of 32 against Nozomi Okuhara (Japan), Ahn Se-young won the first game 21-17 and then overwhelmed her opponent with 21-9 in the second game. The game time at that time was 41 minutes. The round of 16 match against Taiwan’s Hwang Yu-shun also ended in 31 minutes, winning game 1 21-14 and then winning game 2 21-9.

Ahn Se-young will attempt to win two consecutive tournaments this year, following the Malaysia Open, which was the first tournament of the year.

Reporter Kim Myeong-seok elcrack@mtstarnews.com