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| An Se-young / Photo: Getty Images |
[Sports Today reporter Shin Seoyoung] Led by world No. 1 women’s singles player An Se-young, South Korea’s women’s badminton team defeated China to claim the World Team Championships title.
The Korean squad beat China 3-1 in the final of the 2026 World Women’s Team Championships (Uber Cup) in Horsens, Denmark, on May 3 (Korean time).
The victory is Korea’s third overall and their first in four years, following titles in 2010 and 2022.
Held every two years, the world team championships are the premier event in team badminton.
Each tie consists of three singles and two doubles matches; the first team to three wins takes the tie.
Korea dominated the group stage, sweeping Spain, Bulgaria and Thailand 5-0 and not dropping a single game.
That momentum carried into the knockout rounds, where Korea beat Taiwan 3-1 in the quarterfinals and Indonesia 3-1 in the semifinals to reach the final.
The standout of the tournament was An Se-young. She opened every tie from the group stage through the final and won all six matches in straight sets, 2-0.
Korea again sent An out first in the final to set the tone. As the No. 1 singles, she dispatched world No. 2 Wang Zhiyi 2-0 (21-10, 21-13).
An asserted herself from the first point of the opening set. After falling behind 0-1, she ran off seven consecutive points to jump to a 7-1 lead. She went into the interval up 11-2 and closed the set 21-10 without trouble.
She kept control in the second set as well, opening with five straight points and taking an 11-5 lead at the break.
At 12-6 Wang closed to within three after a three-point run, but An never relinquished the advantage.
Forcing an error from Wang to reach match point at 20-13, An finished the match with a hairpin drop. The win took just 47 minutes.
The victory extended An’s head-to-head record against Wang to 20-5 in her favor.
Korea suffered a brief setback in the second match when the doubles pairing Jeong Na-eun and Lee So-hee fell 0-2 (15-21, 12-21) to Liu Shengshu and Tan Ning.
But second singles Kim Ga-eun produced a key upset. Ranked 17th in the world, Kim beat No. 4 Chen Yufei 2-0 (21-19, 21-15) to put Korea back in front.
In the fourth match, doubles duo Baek Ha-na and Kim Hye-jung closed out the tie after an 85-minute battle, coming from a set down to win 2-1 (16-21, 21-10, 21-13) over Cai Yifan and Zhang Shuxian.
[Sports Today reporter Shin Seoyoung sports@stoo.com]
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