▲ An Se-young greets the crowd after winning her match.
An Se-young (Samsung Life Insurance) secured a dominant victory in just 20 minutes in her opening singles match, getting off to a flying start in her bid to achieve the first-ever back-to-back women's singles titles in Asian Games badminton history.
World No. 1 women's singles badminton player An Se-young easily defeated Kamila Smagulova (Kazakhstan) 2-0 (21-5, 21-5) in the women's singles Round of 32 at the 2026 Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games held today (the 26th) at the Ichinomiya City Gymnasium in Aichi Prefecture, Japan.
It was a performance of sheer dominance.
Blocked from the start by An's wall-like defense, her opponent struggled to find any openings and crumbled helplessly against An's sharp, piercing attacks.
Due to the tournament schedule requiring both the Round of 32 and Round of 16 to be played on the same day, An conserved as much energy as possible, conceding a total of only 10 points across the two games to cruise into the Round of 16 with ease.
In the Round of 16, An will face Ranithma Tinudi Viyhena Liyanage of Sri Lanka.
Widely regarded as the overriding favorite to win the title at this tournament, An is challenging to make new history.
Having swept both the team and individual singles events at the 2022 Hangzhou Asian Games, if An claims the singles crown at this tournament, she will achieve the monumental feat of defending her title for the first time in the history of women's singles badminton at the Asian Games.
(Photo: Yonhap News)
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