Ahn Se-young: Japanese Veteran Sets Goal to Compete with Badminton Star

(Reporter Kim Ji-soo, Xports News) Japanese women’s badminton veteran national team member Nozomi Okuhara (30th in the world) has set the New Year’s goal to ‘catch up with Ahn Se-young’, who dominated in 2025.

‘Daily Sports’, a Japanese sports media outlet, published an interview article with Okuhara on the 29th. Okuhara lost 0-2 to Tomoka Miyazaki in the women’s singles semifinals of the 29th All Japan Badminton Championships, failing to advance to the finals.

Okuhara said, “There are parts of me that are upset and parts of me that are happy. I have many emotions. I made a lot of mistakes, and my opponent made few mistakes. I think I’m still lacking in training.”

Okuhara, born in 1995, won a bronze medal in badminton women’s singles at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics and stepped on the Olympic podium. She was reborn as a ‘world class’ player by winning the women’s singles title at the 2017 World Championships held in Glasgow, England.

Okuhara later won the 2018 Women’s Team World Championship (Uber Cup) in Bangkok, Thailand and the gold medal in the women’s team event at the 2018 Jakarta-Palembang Asian Games, playing an active role as a star in Japanese women’s badminton along with Akane Yamaguchi. However, since winning a bronze medal in the women’s team event at the 2022 Uber Cup in Bangkok, Thailand, they have not achieved any notable results in major international competitions.

Okuhara has suffered from major and minor injuries recently, but he completed the 2025 season without injury, raising expectations for a comeback. In 2026, they are preparing to participate in the Nagoya-Aichi Asian Games to be held in their home country.

Okuhara expressed satisfaction, saying, “We have obtained the right to participate in a high-level competition in 2026.” Since he is ranked in the world’s top 32, it means he can participate in top competitions hosted by the Badminton World Federation (BWF), such as Super 1000 and Super 750.

He then said, “The key is whether I can stay alert and approach Korea’s Ahn Se-young,” and set Ahn Se-young as his personal goal, saying, “I hope I can proceed at my own pace.”

The reason why Okuhara mentioned Ahn Se-young is clear. Ahn Se-young is showing overwhelming performance at the ‘No. 1’ position without any disagreement among active female badminton singles players.

Ahn Se-young recently won the women’s singles at the Badminton World Federation (BWF) World Tour Finals 2025 held in Hangzhou, China. She showed an overwhelming performance by defeating Japan’s Akane Yamaguchi, ranked 3rd in the world, in the semifinals with a game score of 2-0 (21-15 21-12).

Japanese media ‘Badminton Spirit’ even admitted defeat, saying, “Yamaguchi played a good game against Ahn Se-young in the preliminaries, leading her to three games, but in the semi-finals, she was unable to keep up with Ahn Se-young, who was leading the pace, and suffered a loss.”

Before the 2025 season World Tour Finals, Ahn Se-young won trophies 10 times, including three Super 1000 series (Malaysia Open, All England Open, Indonesia Open), five Super 750 series (India Open, Japan Open, China Masters, Denmark Open, French Open), Australian Open (Super 500), and Orleans Masters (Super 300). We kissed.

Ahn Se-young kept his momentum and succeeded in conquering the World Tour Finals, which is the last competition of the 2025 season and has the character of a ‘King of Kings’. With his 11th win, he was on par with the 11th win recorded by Japanese men’s singles legend Kento Momota in 2019. She set a new record for the most wins in a single season as a female athlete.

Ahn Se-young’s fame and standing appear to have grown beyond imagination. A veteran player who has won the World Championship also mentioned Ahn Se-young when revealing his determination for next year.

Photo = Yonhap News

Reporter Jisoo Kim [email protected]