SEOUL, November 08 (AJP) - A sellout home crowd in Yeosu, on South Korea's southern coast, watched An Se-young become the first badminton player to win 11 titles in two straight seasons on Sunday. The world No. 1 beat Japan's Yamaguchi Akane in the women's singles final of the Korea Open.
The victory was her 55th in a row. She has won 71 of 72 matches this year, a win rate of 98.6 percent, and has not lost since China's Wang Zhiyi beat her in the All England Open final in March.
Before this season, only two players had won 11 titles in a single year. Japan's Momota Kento did it in 2019, and An matched him last year.
Her 2025 season ended with 73 wins and four losses. The Badminton World Federation (BWF) said that 94.8 percent win rate was the highest in singles since 2007 for a player with at least 60 matches in a season.
An, 24, won the Olympic gold medal in Paris in 2024 and plays for Samsung Life. This year she took her second world title in New Delhi in August and her second straight Asian Games gold in Japan in September. She also withdrew from the Japan Open in July with an injury.
Sunday's final was a rematch of last year's Korea Open, where Yamaguchi beat An to deny her the title in front of the home crowd. An has not lost to the Japanese world No. 2 since, and the final was her 11th straight win over Yamaguchi.
The first game stayed level until 9-9. An then took 12 of the last 15 points, forcing a string of errors from Yamaguchi and winning it 21-12 with a run that included seven straight points.
Yamaguchi answered with an early run of four straight points in the second game. Her play at the net troubled An, especially her hairpin shots, soft touches that drop just over the net. An never drew level and lost the game 21-15.
In the deciding game, An dropped the first point and then won six in a row. Yamaguchi twice pulled within a point, but a cross-court half smash gave An an 11-9 lead at the interval. She won the next five points after the players changed ends.
Successive hairpins from Yamaguchi caught the net, giving An a 19-15 lead, and a sharp cross-court attack brought up match point at 20-16. The match ended when Yamaguchi's last shot landed out.
An cupped a hand behind her ear to draw more noise from the 3,500 fans, let out a long roar and mimed placing a crown on her own head. It was her third Korea Open title after wins in 2022 and 2023.
The BWF World Tour Finals, the season-ending event for the year's top players, begin in Hangzhou, China, in early December. A title there would give An 12 for the season, a total no badminton player has reached.
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