The title ‘empress’ is no longer a waste for Ahn Se-young (21, Samsung Life Insurance), who will compete in the badminton women’s singles event at the 2022 Hangzhou Asian Games (AG).
Ahn Se-young, who has shown a steep growth curve from 2018, when she entered the adult stage, to this year, rose to No. 1 in the world rankings last month and maintains her undisputed top position.
Now, for the second time in her career, Ahn Se-young will confidently challenge for the gold medal on the AG stage.
Ahn Se-young, who began her career as a player in earnest when she was at Pungam Elementary School, gained a reputation as an unrivaled powerhouse as she progressed through middle school.
During her time at Gwangju Physical Education Middle School, she was selected by the Korea Badminton Association. She gradually made a name for herself as she was selected as an excellent player in 2015. In 2017, she competed in the women’s singles category at the Asian Junior Badminton Championships, where she became the Korean Badminton Association’s best player. Contributed to winning the mixed team event.
Se-young Ahn won the under-17 women’s singles event at the Miryang Wonwon Yonex Korea Junior Open that year, setting a record for her fifth consecutive title in the event.
By the time she was in middle school, she had already surpassed adults. In the 2018 badminton national team selection competition, she defeated all adult players, including Lee Jang-mi (MG Saemaeul Geumgo), who was the active national team at the time, in the women’s singles category, and she was confirmed as a national representative.
It was the first time in Korean badminton history that a middle school student was selected to the national team after going through a selection competition. In the case of Lee Yong-dae (Yonex), who wore the Taegeuk mark when she was in middle school, she was selected as a ‘recommended player’ without a preliminary round.
However, at the 2018 Asian Games in Jakarta and Palembang, where she represented the national team, she was eliminated in the women’s singles quarterfinals and felt the barrier of international competition.
Se-young Ahn bounced back from the setback and she also won all nine matches in the women’s singles at the 2019 National Team Qualifiers. That year, she defeated China’s Li Xue Rui in the final of the Badminton World Federation (BWF) Tour Super 300 New Zealand Open women’s singles to claim her international title. Won the first championship in the competition.
Afterwards, she also won the BWF Tour Super 100 Canadian Open. Se-young Ahn became the first Korean to receive the BWF Rookie of the Year honor. From then on, Ahn Se-young was told that she was a genius girl.카지노
In 2021, she qualified for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics after being recommended by the Performance Improvement Committee. However, she was unable to overcome the pressure of high expectations and fell to Chen Yufei (China) in the quarterfinals.
She has a strong mentality and physical strength that does not give up on any rally, and her defensive ability was mentioned as her special strength, but there were criticisms that her sharp attack was disappointing.
Afterwards, even in international competitions, she was unable to overcome her natural enemies represented by Chen Yu-fei, He Bing-jiao (China), Tai Zi-ying (Taiwan), and Akane Yamaguchi (Japan), and she seemed to remain as an ‘unfinished standby’.
To make up for this, Ahn Se-young devoted herself to weight training all last winter. As a result, her physical strength, which was her existing strength, was further improved and her smashes were also more powerful. The effects of her training showed immediate results.
In early January, she finished runner-up to Akane Yamaguchi (Japan) at the Malaysia Open, but a week later, at the India Open, she successfully avenged Yamaguchi and rose to the top.
After that, it was a success story. After winning two consecutive tournaments by winning the Indonesia Masters, he also won the All England Open, the most prestigious tournament in March.
He won the Thailand Open and Singapore Open in June, the Korea Open and Japan Open in July, and has won gold medals nine times this season, including the World Championships last month and the recent China Open.
In the end, Ahn Se-young pushed Japan’s Yamaguchi to second place, which had been a difficult barrier to overcome, and rose to first place in the BWF rankings.
Ahn Se-young, who is rewriting the history of Korean badminton, is now aiming to win the Asian Games from first place.
Although Chen Yufei and He Bingjiao are playing at home, they feel pressured, but they have already defeated them in a weighty competition, so they are confident about winning the gold medal.
If Ahn Se-young wins this year’s Hangzhou tournament, she will be able to break the ‘big four’ structure of Yamaguchi, Chen Yu-fei (China), and Tai Tzu-ying (Taiwan) and build an overwhelming ‘top power’.
Article provided by News 1