Seo Seung-jae and Kim Won-ho defeated Ben Lane and Sean Bendy 2-1 in the men’s doubles semifinals of the 2026 World Badminton Federation Malaysia Open and advanced to the finals. They lost 8-21 in game 1, but came back to win 21-11 in game 2 and won 20-18 in game 3, winning the final championship.
This is the dignity of the world’s strongest doubles team, which won 11 crowns last season. The team of Seo Seung-jae (Samsung Life Insurance) and Kim Won-ho (Samsung Life Insurance), ranked No. 1 in the badminton men’s doubles world rankings, advanced to the finals of the first tournament of the 2026 season and started toward the championship.
Seo Seung-jae and Kim Won-ho achieved a 2-1 (8-21 21-11 21-18) victory over England’s Ben Lane and Sean Bendy (16th) in the men’s doubles semifinals of the 2026 Badminton World Federation (BWF) Malaysia Open held at the Asiata Arena in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on the 10th (Korean time).
The process of advancing to the finals was not smooth. Seo Seung-jae and Kim Won-ho gave up the lead early in the first game and fell behind by a score of 3-10, and were unable to narrow the score gap, losing 8-21 and getting off to an uneasy start.
From the second game, he showed off his potential as the world’s No. 1 player. Seo Seung-jae and Kim Won-ho set the tone by winning 5 points in a close game of 6-5, and scored 4 consecutive points at 17-11 to bring the game back to square one at 21-11.
The three fateful games were fiercely contested. Seo Seung-jae and Kim Won-ho, who were trailing at 1-5 in the beginning, did not give up and started to chase, accumulating scores one by one. The decision was made at the end of the game. While trailing 14-15, he scored three decisive points in a row to turn the tide, and calmly finished the game with a match point of 20-18, enjoying a thrilling victory.
Seo Seung-jae and Kim Won-ho are the strongest doubles team that created a record that will remain in badminton history last season. They won their 11th championship of the season by defeating world number 7 Liang Weikeng and Wang Chang (China) 2-0 (21-18 21-14) in the final of the BWF World Tour Finals held in Hangzhou, China last December.
In the 2025 season, Seo Seung-jae and Kim Won-ho, along with Li Yongbo-Tianbing, Gefei-Gu Jun, and Yu Yang-Wang Xiaoli, were named as the doubles team with the most wins in a single season in history. Last year, ▲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 ▲Japan Masters (Super 500) 500) and then the finals, and had the best year together with Ahn Se-young in the women’s singles.
Related reading
