An Se-young Receives a Surprise Question: "How Can I Beat You?"

[Anchor]

An Se-young reclaimed her status as the world's best last night (August 23) by capturing the World Championships singles title for the first time in three years. Her overwhelming momentum, featuring six consecutive straight-set victories, even prompted a rival player to directly ask her how anyone could possibly beat her.

Reporter Bae Jeonghun has more.

[Reporter]

Displaying lightning-fast agility and a net defense that made it hard to believe she suffered a foot injury just a month ago, An Se-young repeatedly forced defending champion Akane Yamaguchi to the floor with a step-ahead smash. She returned to the top of the World Championships after three years by securing straight-set victories across all six matches of the tournament.

After the match, China's rival Wang Zhiyi made a surprise appearance in the interview room as a guest reporter.

[An Se-young: Wang Zhiyi is today's special reporter.]

[Wang Zhiyi: Congratulations on your victory.]

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

[Wang Zhiyi: I'm really nervous.]

Having won only once against An Se-young in their 14 encounters since last year, Wang Zhiyi asked a question that had been weighing heavily on her mind.

[Wang Zhiyi: How can I beat you?]

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

[Reporter: So, are you saying that Wang Zhiyi doesn't train hard enough? (Laughs)]

An overseas badminton statistics site also analyzed that with this victory, An Se-young has climbed to third place in the all-time greatest players ranking.

Boasting 44 wins and 1 loss this season with a 97.8% win rate—putting her on track to surpass her own all-time record win rate of 94.8% set last year—An Se-young 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 be very difficult. It will be tough, but I believe that if I do my best, I can bring home a good result, so I think I will be able to pull it through successfully.]

(Video editing: Park Gi-deok, Design: Kim Yeji)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.