An Se Young matches badminton legend Li Xue Rui's 11-year-old feat after reaching Korea Open 2023 final

The Korean went on to lift the women's singles title.

South Korea's An Se Young continued her fine run in the BWF World Tour as she lifted the Korea Open 2023 title after beating Taipei's Tai Tzu Ying in straight games in the women's singles title clash. The Korea Open title is An Se Young's sixth title in the BWF Tour this season alone and 17th overall. She needed just 38 minutes to see of Tai Tzu Ying, who has been one of her main rivals this season.

While she went on to win the Korea Open 2023 women's singles title, it was by reaching the final that she created history. When she defeated World No. 4 Chen Yu Fei of China in three games on July 22 (Saturday), An Se Young reached her ninth final this season. It helped her match the feat of Chinese badminton legend Li Xue Rui, who also reached nine finals in the year 2012. They are the only two players now to achieve the feat of reaching nine finals in a single year.

An Se Young though still has half a year remaining to be played and is likely to surpass that record at some point this year. Eight of those finals have come in the BWF World Tour (Malaysia Open, India Open, Indonesia Masters, German Open, All England Open, Thailand Open, Singapore Open and Korea Open). While An Se Young also played in the BWF Asian Championships final where she finished as a runners-up after losing to Tai Tzu Ying in the final.

Li Xue Rui also took 13 tournaments to achieve that feat of playing nine finals, while An Se Young has reached the milestone in just 10 tournaments. Here is a breakdown of the nine finals both An Se Young and Li Xue Rui played in a singles year.

Li Xue Rui (2012)

• German Open
• All England Open Badminton
• Asia championships
• India Open
• Indonesia Open
• London Olympics
• China Open
• Hong Kong Open
• BWF Superseries finals

An Se Young (2023)

• Malaysia Open
• India Open
• Indonesia Masters
• German Open
• All England Open
• Thailand Open
• Badminton Asia Championships
• Singapore Open
• Korea Open

Of the nine finals that Li Xue Rui played in 2012, she won eight titles, including an Olympic gold at the London Olympics and the Asian Championships title. Five of those titles came in the BWF Superseries, with the Chinese winning the All England Open, India Open, China Open, Hong Kong Open and the BWF World Superseries Finals. Apart from these, Li also lifted the German Open title in the BWF Grand Prix level.

An Se Young, on the other hand, has won six titles from nine final appearances and seven of them have come in the BWF World Tour (which replaced the BWF Superseries in 2018). She finished runners-up in the Malaysia Open, German Open and the Badminton Asia Championships and won the rest of the tournaments.