Two years ago, Ahn Se-young (21, Samsung Life Insurance) cried out loud in Tokyo. It was because he had to finish the Olympic stage he had dreamed of in the quarterfinals, even though he had not been idle for a single day for three years and had trained vigorously according to the set schedule. Ahn Se-yeong, a bubbly teenage girl who danced when she won and knew how to perform fancy ceremonies for the crowd, shed tears, saying, “If you haven’t worked so hard, you must work harder, right?”

The opponent who dropped her Ahn Se-young was Chen Yu-fei (25, China). At the time, she was ranked number 8 in the world rankings, she was number 2 in the rankings, one notch above Ahn Se-young, and the strongest player in the world. Ahn Se-young had never defeated him. Ahn Se-yeong, who fell on her fifth knee after meeting Chen Yu-fei, whom she met four times and lost all four times in the Olympics, must have met in the quarterfinals, wiped away her unstoppable tears and said, “My mother said that there is no tree that cannot be felled by taking it 10 times, but it seems that there are still trees. She said, but she will keep trying,” she said.

Ahn Se-yeong was knocked down twice more by Chen Yu-fei, who was called the ‘nemesis’, but did not give in. In her 8th match, she finally defeated her in the Malaysia Masters final in July of last year and wrote ‘7 out of 8’, and then met in the semifinals at the Malaysia Open in January and won again.

It was the 2023 Jeon Young Open, the best stage in the world of badminton, to meet again with her 2 wins and 8 losses. Ahn Se-young defeated Chen Yu-fei 2-1 (21-17 10-21 21-19) in the women’s singles final at the Jeon Young Open held in Birmingham, England on the 19th to win the championship.

After winning the 1st set but giving away the 2nd set too helplessly, the 3rd set was a great match. Ahn Se-young, who easily overturned the score difference while attacking with powerful smashing, threw the racket coolly when the championship was confirmed. She jumped into the crowd, landed an uppercut, then put her hands over her ears and reveled in the cheers of the fans.

About two years after the Tokyo Olympics, Ahn Se-young is now ranked second in the world, ranking higher than Chen Yu-fei토토사이트 (fourth), but the relationship with him is one of the homework that Ahn wants to break the most. Now she has completely done her homework as Ahn Se-young defeated that rival at her second biggest stage after the Olympics, the Jeon Young Open.

Ahn Se-young said, “I can’t believe it. In the meantime (in the confrontation with Chen Yu-fei), various tournament experiences have been accumulated and good results have come out,” she said. “I think it marked a milestone in my career. I am proud of myself. At the same time, it was a game that made me feel like I needed to grow one step further.”

The gold medal that Ahn Se-young won by defeating Chen Yu-fei is a new future in the history of badminton in Korea. It is Korea’s first gold medal in women’s singles since Bang Soo-hyun in 1996 in 27 years. After Bang Soo-hyun, there were strong players who ranked high in the world rankings, such as Jeon Jae-yeon and Seong Ji-hyun, but the dream of conquering the Olympics or the Jeon Young Open was not achieved.

In her third year of middle school, she beat adult players and was selected for the national team. She was the youngest badminton player ever to wear the Taegeuk mark and was called a ‘shuttlecock genius’. come. With her victory at the Jeon Young Open, she succeeded the real Bang Soo-hyeon and she proved her reputation at only twenty-one.

Even in the current top 5 in the women’s singles world rankings, Ahn Se-young is the only one who was born in the 2000s. 1st place Akane Yamaguchi (26, Japan), 3rd place Tai Ziying (29, Taiwan), and 5th place He Bingjiao (26, China) are all in their late 20s. The era of young but strong Ahn Se-young has begun.