KUALA LUMPUR: It's remarkable that South Korean women's singles star An Se Young has won everything in badminton, and she is just 22.
Having successfully conquered her final frontier — the Olympic gold in Paris last August — world No. 1 Se Young has vowed to continue training hard to keep ahead of her rivals.
Without setting specific targets, and not even looking at defending her Olympic gold at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, Se Young wants to keep excelling at every tournament she plays, after having fully recovered from a left knee injury that threatened to end her career prematurely last year.
After taking it easy since her Paris success, Se Young has started strongly at the Malaysia Open Super 1000, where she effortlessly sailed into the quarter-finals at the Axiata Arena on Thursday.
The defending champion easily defeated world No. 34 Nguyen Thuy Linh of Vietnam 21-15, 21-15 in 38 minutes to advance to the last eight.
The winner of 23 World Tour titles and the first South Korean to win the women's singles world crown in 2023, Se Young has also added the Asian Games gold at the 2022 Hangzhou Asian Games to her tally.
She is also unperturbed by the challenge of world No. 2 Wang Zhi Yi of China to unseat her as the world No. 1.
Se Young has held the top spot on several occasions since August 2023.
Zhi Yi has recently spoken about replacing Se Young as No. 1, but the Gwangju-born shuttler has taken every challenge in her stride.
"I am glad to have fully recovered from the injury and want to continue working hard to improve my game. Not thinking about the Los Angeles Olympics just yet," said the pint-sized Se Young.
"I want to keep my goals a secret for now as I want to do as well as I can this year without talking about any specific targets.
"I know that Zhi Yi is closing in on the No. 1 spot, but I am not going to put any stress on myself by singling her out as my main rival. Many of the players on the tour are strong.
"I just want to focus on doing well in these tournaments and other events on the tour."
Se Young also attracted controversy by taking the BA of Korea (KBA) to task for neglecting players' welfare and showing preferential treatment between seniors and juniors.
She mentioned that she was forced to play with her injury for more than a year prior to the Olympics without solid support from the association.
"I have not seen any drastic changes, but I'm not too concerned with those issues as I focus on playing in tournaments without worrying much about other matters," added Se Young.
The fact that Se Young has won all the major honours has made her relaxed, adding pressure on her rivals aiming to upstage her.
As long as Se Young stays away from injuries, it will be an uphill task for anyone to end her dominance in the coming years.