How to beat An Se Young - the players' verdicts

By Milly McEvoy in Birmingham

If anyone wants to get their hands on the YONEX All England Open women’s singles title, they’ll have to defeat the woman who has not been beaten in 2025.

An Se Young is the world number one, the reigning Olympic gold medallist and has won three tournaments in a row in the lead-up to the event. The Korean has dropped just two games all year, with one coming against Kirsty Gilmour in the second round in Birmingham.

Another one of the players who An has vanquished on her quest for a second All England title is Chen Yu Fei. Herself a former winner here, Chen was able to reflect on what she did differently in the second game to pressure the 2023 world champion.

Chen said: “She is a good player, she is always stronger, so I didn’t have the speed, and I couldn’t attack her. It was important that I had more patience and tried to reduce my mistakes.

“She has always been a good player, she always has a very stable performance, and I think at the moment, her confidence is very high. I think anyone who plays her needs to be carefully prepared with strategies.”

There is a sense that playing your own game will not work against An, who is calmness personified on the court. For Indonesia’s Gregoria Mariska Tunjung, the changes she wants to make to her game after reaching the quarter-finals in Birmingham may stand her in good stead if she comes up against An.

She said: “For me, I want to work on my physical strength because in my recent tournaments my strength hasn’t been so good. We don’t know how to beat her! But you have to be strong to beat An Se Young.”

An Se Young has only lost the first game in a match once this year and for Pornpawee Chochuwong, before you can focus on winning a game, you must first focus on the points you need to get there.

“She is the greatest player in the women’s singles now,” she said. “We all have to fight all the way to get point by point. You think that 21 points would be too much to win against her so you have to try to get one set first and find out how in that moment you can beat her.”

Unsurprisingly, the players who could still face An Se Young were giving little away on their potential game plans. An will face Akane Yamaguchi in Saturday’s semi-finals, but on the other side of the draw are Han Yue and Wang Zhi Yi of China.

For Han, who is chasing a first All England final, the chance to face the Korean would be a special moment in and of itself. She said: “I will try to win my semi-final first. If I am lucky enough to play her, that is something.

“I will feel very honoured to play her and I will also to try my best if I have the opportunity to play against her.”

Wang was the last player to beat An, doing so in the semi-finals of the HSBC BWF World Tour Finals last year en route to taking the title. She is therefore the player best placed to answer the question of how to beat An, but the second seed wants to let her badminton do the talking.

“I do really look forward to playing against her,” Wang said. “But I won’t be playing her in the semi-finals. I will try my best to win my match and I look forward to playing An Se Young in the final if that is possible.”

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