An Se-young's Surprising Post-Match Question: "How Can I Beat You?"

[Anchor]

An Se-young recaptured the World Championships summit last night (August 23) for the first time in three years, reaffirming her status as the world's undisputed best. Her overwhelming momentum—securing six consecutive 2-0 sweeps—prompted a rival player to directly ask her, "How can I possibly beat you?"

Reporter Bae Jeonghun has the details.

[Reporter]

Displaying lightning-fast agility—hard to believe she injured her foot just a month ago—she deployed a "net defense" and used a fraction-of-a-second-faster smash to floor defending champion Akane Yamaguchi multiple times. With six straight 2-0 shutout victories in this tournament, An returned to the top of the World Championships after three years.

At the post-match interview room, her Chinese rival Wang Zhiyi made a surprise appearance as a guest reporter.

[An Se-young: Wang Zhiyi is our guest reporter today.]

[Wang Zhiyi: Congratulations on the victory.]

[An Se-young: Thank you so much.]

[Wang Zhiyi: I am very nervous.]

Having beaten Wang just once in their 14 encounters since last year, Wang posed the question that had been weighing on her heart.

[Wang Zhiyi: How can I beat you?]

[An Se-young: How can you beat me? Ah, that is a secret. I always train harder because I want to win matches. It is really that simple.]

[Reporter: So, are you saying that Wang Zhiyi does not train hard enough? (Laughs)]

An overseas badminton statistics site also released an analysis showing that An has climbed to third place in the all-time greatest player rankings following this victory.

Boasting a stellar 44 wins and 1 loss this season with a 97.8% winning percentage—well on track to surpass her own all-time record of 94.8% set last year—An is now setting her sights on becoming the first singles player in history to win consecutive Asian Games gold medals.

[An Se-young / National Badminton Team: Winning consecutive Asian Games titles will probably be very difficult. It will be tough and demanding, but if I do my best, I believe I can bring home a good result, so I think I can pull it off successfully.]

(Video edited by: Park Gi-deok, Design: Kim Ye-ji)

※