Badminton player An Se-young secured the 2026 Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games women’s singles title on September 29 at the Ichinomiya City Gymnasium in Aichi Prefecture, Japan, defeating Japan’s Akane Yamaguchi 2-0 (21-17, 21-9) in the final. Badminton statistics platform BadmintonRanks reported that An surrendered an average of just 8.9 points per game across the tournament, marking the lowest average score conceded by any major championship winner in the platform’s tracking.
An Se-young Defeats Akane Yamaguchi for Consecutive Asian Games Gold
The straight-games victory over world number three Akane Yamaguchi delivered An her second Asian Games gold medal following her victory at the 2022 Hangzhou Games. Badminton records show this performance makes An the first player to successfully defend the women’s singles title since the discipline joined the Asian Games program as an official medal event in 1962. The win extended a dominant tournament run in which the South Korean athlete did not drop a single game throughout the individual competition.
Scoring Breakdown Across Five Tournament Rounds
An advanced through five rounds and ten individual games in Ichinomiya, compiling a total of 89 points conceded to opponents across the entire event. In the 32nd round, she defeated Kazakhstan’s Kamila Smagulova 2-0 (21-5, 21-5) in 20 minutes, before eliminating Sri Lanka’s Ranitma Tinu디 Wehehena Liyanage (21-9, 21-10) in the round of 16. The quarterfinal saw a 2-0 win (21-8, 21-9) against Thailand’s Ratchanok Intanon. In the semifinal, An faced China’s Chen Yufei, overcoming her 21-5 and 21-12. An surrendered a tournament total of 89 points over ten games, producing the exact 8.9 points-per-game average noted by BadmintonRanks.
Comparison With Prior Major Championship Records
Viktor Axelsen of Denmark yielded an average of 11.6 points per game during his men’s singles run at the 2024 Paris Olympics. In doubles, China’s Wang Xiaoli and Yu Yang conceded 10.6 points per game at the 2011 All England Open, while Japan’s Kento Momota averaged 10.0 points at the 2019 BWF World Championships. An previously averaged 10.8 points allowed during her 2022 Hangzhou Asian Games gold medal run, lowering that figure by 1.9 points in Japan to record the sole single-digit average points-against figure in the platform’s tracking.
What Remains Unanswered
Tournament organizers have not yet announced the official schedule for the international circuit events following the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games, leaving the exact date of An’s next competitive appearance unconfirmed by governing bodies.
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