An Se-young Lost Once in 2026 and Crowned Herself: 50 Straight Wins Before the Korea Open

Featured photo: An Se-young with Team Korea at the Hangzhou Asian Games. Photo: KOCIS (Korean Culture and Information Service), via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0.

Badminton world No. 1 An Se-young played 67 international matches in 2026 and won 66. She hasn’t lost since March 8, and on the Paris court where she locked in her 50th straight win, she made a crown with her ten fingers and set it on her own head. And this week, after saying she wanted a rest, she walked back onto the court at the Korea Open, the tournament where she lost last year’s final.

Honestly, when I first saw that number I thought it was a typo. As a fan, I still can’t quite believe I’m watching one player take an entire year for herself, live.

The night of the ten-finger crown

On October 25 in Paris, in the women’s singles final of the BWF French Open, An dropped the first game 16–21 to India’s PV Sindhu and was down 5–8 in the third. The result was still a comeback: 16–21, 21–11, 21–12 (The Korea Herald). That made three French Open titles in a row, her tenth title of the season and an 11th straight win over Sindhu. The moment it was over, she shaped a crown with both hands and placed it on her head (JoongAng Ilbo).

What she said after the match was far humbler than the crown. Her body and mind were tired, she said, and she still poured everything into that match (The Korea Herald). I love that honesty as much as the crown.

Also read: Call of Duty Cut Tiananmen. Modern Warfare 4 Kept Itaewon

The day she lost, and the 50 matches after

An’s only loss this year came in the All England final on March 8, to China’s world No. 2 Wang Zhiyi (The Korea Herald, OSEN). After that she took the World Championships in New Delhi in August, the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games in September (her second straight singles gold), the China Masters, the Denmark Open and the French Open, one after another (OSEN, The Korea Herald). Her win rate is 98.5 percent.

The road wasn’t smooth. She withdrew from the Japan Open in July with pain in her left foot and skipped the China Open to rehab (OSEN). She played the Denmark Open final with pain near her right Achilles tendon (The Korea Herald). The weeks when she had to hold back are part of how she got to 50 straight wins.

The Denmark Open title moved her past Indonesian legend Susi Susanti for the most international titles in women’s singles, and Paris was her 48th career title (The Korea Herald). She is still only 24. In 2023 she became the first Korean woman to win the world singles title, and at the 2024 Paris Olympics she won Korea’s first women’s singles gold in 28 years, since Bang Soo-hyun in 1996 (same article).

Korea started arguing about its GOAT

Right after her second Asian Games gold, An said, “Today I’ll enjoy the word GOAT” (JoongAng Ilbo). That reopened an old question among Korean sports fans: who is the greatest Korean female athlete of all time? The candidates were golfer Pak Se-ri, who waded barefoot into a water hazard on her way to winning the 1998 U.S. Women’s Open; Kim Yuna, figure skating gold medalist at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics; volleyball’s Kim Yeon-koung; weightlifter Jang Mi-ran; and An Se-young (JoongAng Ilbo).

For readers outside Korea, in one line: in Korea, Kim Yuna and Pak Se-ri were names beyond comparison. That a 24-year-old badminton player has joined that list is an event in itself. Commentator Han Joon-hee said An “gives the impression of surpassing the win rate of Lee Chang-ho at his peak” (JoongAng Ilbo). Lee Chang-ho dominated the world of Go for more than a decade, and now his name is attached to a badminton player.

The fans’ answer is warm. The second-most-liked Naver comment on that story (52 likes) was simply “They’re all GOATs.” Another that drew agreement read, “Why rank them at all? Every one of them is an amazing, precious treasure of Korea” (Naver News comments, checked early on November 4, 2026). This isn’t a story about taking a throne from someone. It’s a story about one more throne.

Why she showed up in Yeosu after saying she needed rest

Before the Korea Open, An said, “I’ve been running nonstop, so I think I need time to regroup now” (OSEN). Word spread that she might skip it. Instead she chose to sit out next week’s Kumamoto Masters and play in front of her home fans (OSEN, SPOTV News).

The 2026 Yeosu Victor Korea Open runs November 3–8 at Jinnam Gymnasium in Yeosu, South Jeolla Province (KBC). An opened on the afternoon of November 4 against Bulgaria’s world No. 38, Kaloyana Nalbantova (OSEN, Xports News).

This tournament owes her one. In last year’s Korea Open final she lost 0–2 to Japan’s Yamaguchi Akane, and that was the last time Yamaguchi beat her (Chosun Ilbo, Dong-A Ilbo). This year Yamaguchi has faced An seven times and lost all seven (OSEN). If she wins in Yeosu, An matches her own record of 11 titles in a season from last year and becomes the first player since the BWF World Tour began in 2018 to win 11 or more titles in two straight seasons (Dong-A Ilbo, OSEN).

The final is on November 8. Only one person in the world has beaten An Se-young this year, and the person who beat her at this tournament last year is waiting on the other side of the draw. I’m already waiting for that final, and for the moment she makes the crown again.

Read next

Sources

Discover more from Seol Notes

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

An Se-young Lost Exactly Once This Year, and She Put the Crown on Her Own Head