Badminton world No. 1 An Se-young became the first player to win back-to-back Asian Games women's singles titles, improving her 2026 record to 56 wins and one loss, a win rate above 98 percent.
According to Ilgan Sports and NoCut News, An beat Japan's Akane Yamaguchi 21-17, 21-9 in the final on the 29th of last month at the Ichinomiya City Gymnasium in Aichi Prefecture. The match took 52 minutes, and the title follows her gold at Hangzhou 2022.
광고 문의 · 300×250Yamaguchi, ranked world No. 3, managed only nine points in the second game. Citing badminton statistics, Ilgan Sports said An is the first player to win the Asian Games women's singles without dropping a game.
A first Asian Games repeat, and a pile of firsts
The list compiled by Ilgan Sports is long. No women's singles player had repeated as champion in the 16 Games since Jakarta in 1962. An also became the first to win both the world championship in August and the Asian Games title in the same year.
Her tally of tour-level singles titles rose to 54, making her the sole record holder; at last month's China Masters she had shared the mark with Susi Susanti on 53. Her semifinal win over Chen Yufei a day earlier set a new record for women's singles finals reached, at 68.
Her only loss came at the All England, followed by 40 straight wins
An's single defeat this season came against China's Wang Zhiyi in the All England final in March. She has since won 40 in a row, the second-longest streak in women's singles history, Ilgan Sports reported. Her head-to-head record against Yamaguchi stands at 23-15, and she has won nine straight against her since losing the Korea Open final last August (Financial News).
The 56-1 figure comes with a caveat, however. NoCut News noted that the 98.2 percent win rate excludes retirements through injury: in July she withdrew from the Japan Open before her round-of-16 match with left foot pain. Physical upkeep is therefore seen as the biggest variable for the run.
There is a yardstick to compare with. Newsis reported that An tied the single-season record of 11 titles by winning the year-end finals last year. This year she is building her numbers in win rate and streaks rather than titles, so how many more wins she adds in the remaining events will decide the single-season wins debate. The exact benchmark for that record and her remaining schedule could not be confirmed in this reporting.
